Passages
by Bialy
Summary: For the ones left behind, the survivors, life goes on. The twelve months after the events at Yellow Box.
1. February

Disclaimer: I don't own Death Note, or the months of the year.

Note: Hai guys. So my last two fics have been Mello/Sayu, so for the people who read my stuff but don't actually care for that pairing, here's a non pairing-orientated update! This one'll be twelve chapters long (because there are twelve months in the year I'm so clever right) and will pretty much detail the year after the end of the series. It'll follow Near, the taskforce (mainly Matsuda if I'm honest), the SPK and Misa. Chapters will mostly be shorter than this, I think, because I'm more likely to update it if I think 'oh it's only 1500 words' or something.

Anyway I'm rambling. Spoilers for the entire series, no bad language yet but I'll up the rating if it comes to it. Enjoy.

x

**Passages**

**Chapter One: February**

_you don't have to go home, you just have to go_

January ends abruptly, and February begins with little warning. No one expected February because no one was waiting for it - something about the events of January made it seem like it would never end. Like the good and right thing would be for the twenty-ninth, and the thirtieth, and the thirty-first to play out at half speed, over and over, until those caught up in what had happened were back, and alive, and ready to return to the world.

Now, in glaring winter dawns that are fading quickly into early spring, February seems improper.

Frost crunches underfoot, blades of grass that didn't die but stayed, suspended, in springtime, miniature crystals clinging to strands of xylem, refracting the light. The ground sparkles like some new mine, diamonds glinting through rocks.

The air is crisp and cool and heavy with things going unsaid. Grief is a tangible force, sneaking between bodies and wrapping thin fingers round warm throats. A sense of guilt clings to some of them.

It clings to Matsuda most.

The priest has no place here, really. Though if they are honest, few of them do, these people gathered round an open grave. Matsuda thinks it is hollow and unfitting, to have the priest of a God Light rejected overseeing his funeral, but it was not his choice to make, and if it were offered he would not have taken it. He has no stake in this family, no stake in their grief.

No stake in what is left of this family. He looks up, across the pit in which Light's coffin is being laid, to the sobbing woman clad in black. She is the sole survivor of the Yagami family. The girl in the wheelchair besides her bears the name, but her mind has long since shut down, it seems, and she serves as little more than a sharp, painful reminder of what is gone and what is lost.

Matsuda almost didn't come today. It made him sick to think about it, turning up at the grave of a man he as good as killed. It has only been eight days. The funeral was organised quickly, though, despite the flurry and the conflict and everything that needed to be resolved - they wanted his body in the ground. Near wanted his body in the ground. As if, if they left it, it would come back to life and rise up against them in a tirade of supernatural fury.

Except that it would be unlike Near to think like that. Still, Matsuda thinks about misgivings and revenge, icy cold fingers clawing at his chest and a fire tearing through his heart.

He wonders what Light felt, and remembers bullet holes, and tries think about something else.

-

Misa isn't sure why Matsuda is coming to visit her so much. She knows that Light has had to go away for awhile, because he needs to catch Kira and they're all relying on _him_, on her Light, to crack the case. Matsuda and the others are very nice, but they're not Light, and they'd be lost without him.

The thought makes Misa smile. She can't concentrate on her book (reading makes you smarter, she heard somewhere, and if she is smarter then Light will like her more) because her head is filling with ideas, plans, for her upcoming wedding. Light promised it would be as big as she liked, because he knew how much she liked being in magazines. And he would catch Kira, and be the most amazing detective in the world, and she would be his beautiful bride, and they would be married on Valentine's day, like he promised…

Misa smiles again and traces circles on the table top. Her mind is anywhere but on the book when the doorbell goes, a chirpy buzzing that sounds through the apartment. She flutters through the door and glances through the peephole. As she expected, it is Matsuda.

She lets him in and frowns at his black attire. "Matsu? Why're you wearing so much black?" She pulls a face and wags a finger at him. "You mustn't try to go goth, it wouldn't suit you!"

Misa giggles at her own joke, and Matsuda smiles. She thinks it's rather a weak smile, and guesses her joke wasn't that funny after all. She thinks Matsuda might not even know what a goth is. Forgetting that she asked a question, she offers tea, and bustles off to make it.

Matsuda does not sit; he never does. He is awkward around her even after knowing her for nearly five years, though Misa is pretty sure that he's just this way around all girls. She pokes her head out of the kitchenette to tell him it's okay to sit down, and his mouth fumbles with words that were clearly meant to be a combination of an apology and a thank you, and end up as just a muddle of sounds.

She puts in his regular three sugars (grimacing at the imagined sweetness; it reminds her of Ryuzaki) and adds a swirl of milk. When she places the cup in front of him, Matsuda is staring off, his features contorted in and his brow furrowed. Misa pulls at her skirt, tilting her head, and wonders what is wrong.

But she has never been one for idle thought, so she comes out and asks him.

He starts, as if he didn't know she was there. But everyone _always_ knows when Misa is there. Light told her once that she could brighten up any room. She kept the colours of their apartment subdued so he would notice her being bright more, but he never said it again. Misa knew he thought it, though, and that was enough.

"Matsu?" she prompts, sitting down next to him. "Tell Misa what's wrong." She lays a hand on his arm, and feels the muscles tense under her touch. He is more awkward than usual. Misa frowns.

He sighs. "Misa…oh, it's nothing. But you know Light…you know he'll be away for a long time, right?"

Misa nods. "Yes. But Misa is sure he will write to her soon! Even if he can't call her. Light knows how much I like getting letters, so he'll probably take the time to write me one." She is certain of this, and Matsuda seems so worried. She wants to make him feel as secure as she does, because Light said he'd be coming back and that means he will.

Is that what Matsuda's worried about? Light being away?

"You guys will be okay without him for a little while," she says, patting his arm. She didn't realise she hadn't moved her hand until now. "Monchichi is very smart, isn't he? And Mochi will beat up anyone who causes trouble!" She punches her palm to emphasis this. Matsuda smiles. It's still weak but she's glad she can make him brighten up a little bit.

Misa's _good_ at making things brighter, Light always said so.

Matsuda picks up his tea. He is visibly relaxing, breathing in and out. She notices, all of a sudden, that his eyes are rimmed with red.

"Matsu! Have you been crying?"

He answers "No" too quickly and Misa is not convinced. But she doesn't want to push it, in case he gets more upset, so she just wraps her arms around him and hugs him, pressing her face into his shoulder.

"Whatever's wrong, Matsu, it'll be okay."

"Maybe." He is quiet. He's way too quiet for Matsuda. Matsuda was always more like _her_, loud and bouncy and happy and maybe they didn't understand everything Light and the others said, but they were bright and they could still help out in their own ways. Misa doesn't like seeing him sad.

"It will be," she says again, and she sounds so certain that for a second, Matsuda looks like he believes her.

-

"Light Yagami's funeral was today."

Near does not look up. He is arranging marbles into a pyramid, and if he jogs it, touches it, or places even one marble in a slightly wrong position, the spheres will begin to unlock and roll and skitter away to all corners of the room. So he ignores Rester, and, carefully, lowers another marble onto the pyramid.

A few minutes pass, in which Near places three more marbles onto his structure. It becomes evident that Rester wants a response of some kind, but Near really can't think of what he is expected to say. "Good" he hazards, and Rester is silent, so he thinks it was probably not what the man wanted.

He thinks that if he put one of the marbles with the green glass inside it on next, the pattern will look much better, too, and this is a much more interesting thought so he follows this one up instead.

"Lidner and I are leaving tomorrow," Rester is saying. Near gets the feeling that he wants a conversation, but unless Rester brings up the topic he wants to talk about Near isn't going to humour him.

"And when is Gevanni going?" He fishes a blue marble out of the bag. The pyramid is almost complete.

"Gevanni left two days ago, Near."

"Oh." Three more marbles left to go.

"We'll go back to the FBI," Rester continues. "But you know that if you need us, if you want us back at all, just get in contact and we'll be here."

Two more marbles. Near can't picture a scenario where he _would_ need Lidner and Rester back, and almost says so. He remembers their loyalty, and the fact that their lives have been on the line far, far more than his, and bites his tongue. Instead, he says, "Thank you."

Then, "Was Yagami's funeral well attended?"

Rester shakes his head, and Near only sees it out of the corner of his eye because he is fetching another marble. "The Japanese taskforce. His family. That's it."

"Not Amane?"

"She hasn't been told. The Japanese taskforce…Aizawa told me that they worry what she would do to herself if she learnt he was dead."

"She is the second Kira," Near says, and it is fact, not condemnation.

"She doesn't remember it."

"Does that absolve her? She would do it again."

"She won't have the opportunity." Rester's voice is firm, but it isn't a challenge. It is…paternal? Near wonders if Rester has children. He realises he has never asked.

Near is drawing breath for another statement when the door clicks shut. A tremor, incredibly slight, ripples through the room, and just as Near places the last marble on the pyramid, the ones at the bottom skitter and slide away. He maintains it was the tremor of the door closing, and not a shiver in his hand (_not_ confusion, not anywhere close, and nothing to do with being ignored by a subordinate) that caused the collapse.

He mutters something unintelligible, and collects the marbles closest to him. Some have rolled further away. He does not reach for them, he will wait for -

Who will he wait for?

-

The month wears on.

Officially the Kira case is not closed, but officially the task force aren't meant to be working on it anyway. The circumstances mean that they are, at least temporarily, free of obligations.

Free of work obligations, anyway. Aizawa, with tiredness and memories of January sketches over his face, is going home to his family. He is going to stay with them for a good few weeks, he says, and he is going to get to know his daughters again and he is going to dance with his wife and they're going to go to dinner and theme parks, like families are meant to.

He's lost nearly five years and he's damn well going to make up for them, even if it means quitting his job. That probably wouldn't be financially stable, but he doesn't really care.

Mogi and Ide seem okay. Ide stares off a little too often for Aizawa's comfort, and sometimes when Aizawa speaks to him a guilty look comes across his face, like he was dwelling on the things Aizawa had asked him, quietly, pleadingly, _for his own sanity_ not to dwell on.

Mogi is stern and strong as always. He is a little less trusting now, Aizawa thinks, and apart from the people gathered in that room right now, packing their belongings up and moving out to home, and apart from Near, Mogi's not putting his faith in anyone.

They are all studiously ignoring the fact that it is the twenty-fifth of February, and that in three days time, it will be Light's birthday.

Would have been Light's birthday.

Aizawa knows that Matsuda will probably go to visit Misa. He knows Matsuda will probably go to visit Sachiko and Sayu. He knows Matsuda hasn't recovered from this yet and he can see the man failing, visibly, to cope with every day life. Someone asks him if he wants a coffee, and Matsuda actually stops, completely thrown by the question, and frowns and puzzles it over, and eventually says 'yes', then when he gets it he stares at it like he's never seen one before.

Aizawa's asking for counselling sessions for all of them, but he makes a special note to make _sure_ Matsuda gets his.

He also idly comments to Ide that he doesn't think Matsuda is doing so well, and knows Ide will never tell the man that Aizawa was worried about him.

-

Misa was sure that Light would write to her on his birthday.

She wanted to write to him, but she didn't have an address. She knows that that's for security, but it still grates. She's his _fiancée,_ she should be able to wish him happy birthday, damn it!

She has baked a cake. Just in case, she tells herself, because what _if_ he comes back, and she's not got anything ready for him? What kind of future wife would that make her? So he bakes and buys presents and wraps them carefully and neatly, and sets them on the table, and puts on a pretty dress.

The doorbell rings, and her heart skips a couple of beats.

She can barely bring herself to check. Her stomach clenches and her pulse quickens, and she hurries to the door. _It could be Light, he would come back to see me if he could_ -

It isn't Light. Her heart sinks, her shoulders slump and she deflates as she lets Matsuda into the apartment. He is apologetic - he knows she wants Light here, not him. But he's a friendly face and at least _someone_ is bothering to check up on her and make sure she's not getting too lonely or bored, so she fixes a smile and cuts him a slice of cake.

He starts to stammer out something about Light, but Misa doesn't want to hear it. It's sudden, unusual, she just desperately, ridiculously doesn't want to hear him talk about Light. Like if he does, he'll jinx it, and Light definitely won't be back for his birthday. So she interrupts him by asking how many sugars he takes, because she does know but Matsuda probably wouldn't remember she knows. She often wonders which one of them is smarter and usually thinks it's him, but Misa is much cannier.

"We can talk about Light tomorrow," she says, tidying the pile of presents. "Tomorrow."

"Tomorrow," Matsuda agrees, and with that she knows he'll be back. He looks after her - she'll tell Light how nice he was to her - but it's not the same.

February has been a bad month. Tomorrow it'll be March, though, and March means the start of spring, so maybe things will be brighter.


	2. March

Disclaimer: Don't own it. Quote line is Thin Lizzy.

Note: Aaand chapter two. I find March to be an uninteresting month. I have no idea why. So I think what's developing here (because I have vague outlines but no definite ideas) is that a Matsuda and/or Misa storyline will run through every chapter, and other characters will flicker in and out of view around that. Near will also feature prominently, and though I love Gevanni (and have made him an ass here unfortunately) I shall be practicing my Rester and flexing my Lidner muscles.

Hope you like.

x

**Chapter Two: March**

_pack up, i've had enough, that's it, i quit_

March would have snuck up on them, if it hadn't been for Light's birthday. With than painful reminder gnawing at the seams of a delusional perfect reality, they cannot ignore the shifting of the months and the changing of the days. The twenty-eighth fades, thankfully, into the first, and Matsuda is asleep on Misa's couch, because they both missed Light for different reasons and they both drank to much, and Misa didn't have the heart to order him to catch a bus.

When he wakes up, his head is fuzzy and his vision is blurred and he just wants to go back to sleep. He has the beginnings of a horrible hangover, but through the mess in his mind one thin fact is fighting its way forward. He had no nightmares.

_He had no nightmares_.

For the first night in over a month, he has slept through, and though the amount of alcohol working its way through his system means he is by no means well-rested, it was rest, all the same.

He regards the empty bottle on the table with a doleful look. If alcohol is what it will take to dull the images flashing through his brain, he thinks he might take it up on it's offer.

There is a high-pitched yawn from an adjoining room (and Matsuda didn't even know yawns could be high-pitched, thought that they were, by nature, low-pitched, but Misa is a constant contradiction and yet again has proved him wrong). Matsuda glances down at himself to make sure he is decent, and realises that his clothes are crumpled from being slept it. He checks his watch. He is late.

He checks his premises. He hasn't got anything to be late _for_, not at the moment.

"Matsu?" Misa sounds sleepy. She pokes first her head, and then the rest of her tiny body around the doorframe. As usual, she is barely clothed. A satin nightgown is clinging to her curves and draping off her body, and Matsuda forces himself to look away. She is _still_ Light's fiancée, and she always will be. Matsuda can't - even to look - he _shot_ Light…

He suddenly feels very sick, and staggers to his feet. Misa interprets the look on his face correctly, and points him in the direction of the bathroom.

It was the alcohol, he tells himself later, but knows it wasn't. He still determines to build up a resistance to the stuff, learn not to be such a lightweight, if that's what it'll take to clear his mind and let him sleep.

-

For a week, Aizawa has done nothing but be the father and husband he had almost forgotten how to be. He has played with the child whose first steps he missed, caught up on what subjects his eldest is taking in school. She wants to be a nurse, she tells him, one night over dinner. She thought she wanted to be a vet but if she's honest she doesn't really like animals. She'd much rather help _people_, like her daddy does.

She's wanted it for two years, and he's never known.

He tells his wife what happened, because he needs to tell _someone_, he needs to talk about it, and he can't, not with the others, because they're all looking to him to be strong and brave and _not need_ to talk about it. They're looking for him to move on so they can too, and it'd be fine, except he can't move on because he still, after all this time, sees a fifteen year old boy helping out around headquarters, and not a psychopathic mass murder locked in his grave.

Eriko runs her fingers through his hair and tells him she likes it short. He's not sure if it's the truth or not, and doesn't really mind if it isn't. He catches her fingers and clings on to him, running his broader, rougher digits over her soft and slender ones. Her arms fall round his shoulders and rest a moment before circling his neck. She holds him and does not let go.

All of them are suffering nightmares and they have all confided it in each other at some point. Aizawa knows his aren't the worst. When he wakes up, Eriko's body is unscarred and unblemished, and she is next to him, breathing lightly with a hand curled into the blankets and her knees pulled up just a fraction. When Matsuda wakes up, Light is still dead.

Aizawa knows he is one of the lucky ones, and that's probably what stings so much.

-

Anthony Rester could easily have gone back to using the name Carter by now, but he doesn't. Instead, he gets all his documents changed to the new name, and because he's FBI there aren't many people allowed to ask questions. Then, just as impulsively, he packs up and leaves the city. He can't connect himself to his life anymore. It's been a year - a year to the day, the twelfth of March - since he left, and now, he can't get back to it.

Routines. Groceries that don't involve plastic figures and more coffee than four people should be able to consume. Paperwork. Reports. Social interaction. Friends, fun, drinking, laughing…It's all so simple and natural and none of it is coming back to him. He stumbles, awkward, through conversations, far worse than he ever was before, and forgets elementary things when he goes shopping, like milk or food. That morning he had returned to his apartment, unpacked his bags, and found that he had bought twelve packs of playing cards, a board game, a box of dice and a pack of tampons. He had stared forlornly at his purchases, before realising that none of them were edible and that if he didn't get out of here soon he was going to go insane.

So Rester leaves New York. He has no idea where he's going and he thinks he should try his parents. Only he hasn't spoken to them in three years, and he's not sure they still like him. He thinks of Gevanni and Lidner. His mind casts around and falls onto Near, too, but he abandons that thought before it has a chance to form.

They still have each other's numbers. Gevanni's line is busy, and his voicemail says cheerily to leave a message. Says he's reached 'Stephen' and Rester immediately wants to find the kid and shake some sense into him for putting even the first part of his name up and out into the world like that. He knows Kira is dead but he's really, really never going to get used to using his name again.

He considers the people who call him 'Carter' and the people who call him 'Rester', and he thinks he'd rather stick with this one anyway.

Eventually he gets through to 'Stephen'. He tries to bite it back but the comment about him using his name slips out anyway. He has enough control left to tie it up like a joke, though, and Gevanni laughs, politely and condescendingly. Rester asks what he's up to 'these days', and Gevanni says they only moved back home three weeks ago. Rester make a noise that's the verbal equivalent of a shrug. Gevanni's voice is brusque and he sounds bored. Irritated. Rester thinks about asking him for a place to stay, but the clipped edge at the end of his utterances makes him think Gevanni wouldn't be that accommodating.

They exchange pleasantries and hang up. Defeated, Rester dials Lidner. If she'll let Mello live in her bathroom…

"Hello?"

"Halle?"

"Rester?"

It's a greeting, not even that. He can't even begin to explain why his heart clenched the way it did at the sound of the name. "Yeah. Hey, Halle, I know this is going to sound odd, but…can I stay with you for a few days? I…I don't know if I can explain it over the phone, but -"

"Don't try," Lidner interrupts. Her voice is tight, like Gevanni's, but it's different, like it's been tied with different knots. Lidner laughs, or tries to. She sounds tired. "I think you've done the same thing I have."

Rester is quiet. He can feel himself smiling. "Feel like shacking up together for a bit?" he asks, and he doesn't mean it to come out like he does but then he's said it, and as he sits there and it plays itself over in his head, he realises that's exactly what he _wanted _it to sound like, but hadn't had the nerve.

-

Near is alone.

March is a neutral month, with occasional flicers on sunlight and patches of rain, frost easing off into slush and winds too cold to leave a jumper behind but not cold enough to make you shiver. The skyline is somewhere between blue and grey, unimposing and slightly blurred, and the silence, the pure, unchallenged _silence_, is practically deafening.

Near relishes every second of it.

The Kira case is over and he has won. It took its toll on both sides, he thinks, in the way these things do. He tries to clarify what he means by 'thing', and his mind supplies 'wars'. The word fits, like the final piece of a jigsaw slotted into place, because what was their battle, their matching of minds and their faith in their righteousness, if not some absurd parody of a holy war?

He doesn't smile because the idea doesn't amuse him _that_ much, but the firm line of his mouth softens a little, and he blinks a little more slowly. It had been a war alright, and all wars have their casualties. They make their mark on everyone, even a shadow of a boy at the back of a room. Near takes a bite of his chocolate.

He hates chocolate.

He has not taken on any new cases. Roger has been adjusting, trying out his links as Watari, experimenting with how far his abilities can stretch. He has been practicing his marksmanship, too, because the first Watari could shoot a notebook from the hand of a murderer, and Near has seen a cop do that too. Roger thinks it would be prudent for him to be able to do the same.

Not that his shooting skills did much for the original Watari, Near thinks, lining his finger puppets into rows. Nor for the original L, he supposes, because both of them (and Near, in moments of fantasy between logic and reason, has called them secretly in his mind 'the old guard', though he'd never say it aloud) have ended up dead. Near wonders if he feels any sympathy. _If you can't solve the puzzle you're nothing but a loser_, he said once, but they _did_ solve the puzzle, they just didn't put the pieces onto the board.

Kira was playing with a stacked deck, anyway. For L to even get as far as he did…

L is still dead, though, and he has failed. Near has succeeded.

Near _and Mello_ have succeeded, but Mello is dead too, so by default he has failed.

Mello…has failed.

The thought doesn't sit well with Near. He decides to revise his definition of failure.


	3. April

Disclaimer: Don't own Death Note, don't own Bambi, don't own Italy, don't own England. Lyrics are Stars.

Note: Finally, an update! This was kind of heavy and I feel like it got a bit repetitive. I'm going to work hard at differentiating the ideas a bit more in later chapters. Also I kept getting an Ide/Matsuda vibe when I was writing this and I don't _think_ it comes through, which is good. I know the idea of these two interacting is something I just did in IP, but…I don't know. It worked well here. NEXT CHAP WILL BE BETTER.

**Chapter Three: April**

_Your boy is like a memory_

_Some sense of touch and a melody_

It has been two months, so dwelling in dreams is, at this point, slightly frowned upon. Two months is time enough for this, apparently - no one says why or is sure where the idea has come from, but they just know, it is time enough. The first day of April is bright and clear and later, there will probably be April Showers. Gevanni will remember watching _Bambi_ as a kid, and think about calling his parents. And then he'll order takeout and do some paperwork, and call them on Easter.

Ten years ago he would have used the day as an excuse to play jokes on friends, usually involving obscenely shaped objects and authority figures. He would have gone out and got drunk because it was _April Fool's Day_ and he wasn't even 20 and the college dorms would be noisy until well past two in the morning.

Now time has passed and changed him, and Gevanni sits filling in forms and eating rubbery noodles with a plastic fork.

He isn't young any more. No - well, he is, he's twenty-eight, and that really is pretty young. But he doesn't _feel_ it; he feels old and tired and scared, and he doesn't want anything to do with Gods of Death and people he's got five years on murdering thousands upon thousands of people without leaving his bedroom. He doesn't want Kira to have existed, because Kira changed everything. Kira made you sit and ask yourself - is this right? Is this wrong? Should people die, should we choose? Gevanni hates thinking about those things, because yes, he's FBI, but first and foremost he's a cop and that tells him that there is good and there is bad and that he has a job to do. When he starts second-guessing that, he doesn't know where he stands.

Before, he didn't need to know. He just got on with it. Now, after Near, after Kira, after Mello - it's not that easy. Because it's like he _has_ to think about it, he _has_ to be sure about it.

He can't even explain why he feels that way and thinks it's pretty stupid, all in all. His mind turns to the SPK every now and again and he stops the train of thought, forces it in a different direction. It's still easier not to think about it, though he knows it'll catch up with him eventually.

Not today, though.

-

Matsuda calls Ide at twenty past twelve on April 16th. No, it's April 17th, now, the day's changed.

He doesn't really know what he's doing until he's dialling the number. He's had a few and he's been smoking and Matsuda _never_ smokes and he thinks the nicotine is doing funny things to his head. He's pretty sure someone in the bar he'd been in had handed him a smoke that hadn't been legal, too, but he hadn't been looking at what he was taking so he's not sure _what_ he's inhaled. He went out because he couldn't think of anything to do and he couldn't sleep. He hasn't slept in - no, he _has _slept, hasn't he? He slept…he slept yesterday, and then he woke up. Two hours? He hasn't slept much, anyway.

He's a little strung out when Ide answers the phone and says, "Hello?" For a second Matsuda is confused because he doesn't remember deciding to make a call, and has already forgotten that it's Ide's number he put in.

"Hi?" There's a question in his voice, too.

"…Matsuda?"

"Ide! Hi! So that's who I called! Hey, hey Ide. How are you? Ide, guess what. Remember that time you bet me I couldn't go twenty six hours without sleep? Well, I reckon I have! Pretty cool, right? Oh, how are you? Have I asked that?" He isn't really sure what he's saying but talking is getting pretty easy, so he keeps going.

"So Ide, what have you been doing? I haven't been doing much. There's nothing to do. I met someone tonight. He was a nice guy, he bought me a drink. He followed me to the bathroom though, that was weird. Oh, someone had thrown up on the floor! People drink too much, I think. When they're out. It's okay at home because they don't vomit on other people's bathroom floors. I think that's pretty bad. It was kind of green. Doesn't that mean there's something wrong? Maybe I should find out who it was and get them to see a doctor. What do you think, Ide?"

"I think," Ide says, slowly, carefully, and he sounds like he's just woken up, "that you should tell me _exactly _where you are, and not move until I get there."

Ide arrives fifteen minutes later and by then Matsuda has calmed down considerably. He's still clenching and unclenching his hands a bit, and he's chewing on his bottom lip. He's been pacing, though, up and down and round the telephone box but not _far _from the telephone box because Ide told him to stay put. The pacing has burnt off some energy and his head is foggy, and he's starting to feel tired. Then, Ide is standing next to him.

"Oh, hey Ide!"

"Matsuda." Ide looks worried. Matsuda doesn't know why. He wonders if it's about him and hopes it's not. He doesn't want to have made Ide worry. "Let's go for a walk."

"Aw, but I've been walking for ages."

"Come on." Ide takes him by the elbow and steers him down the street. It's mostly empty, Kira's influence hasn't faded away. Matsuda starts to bite his nail, and Ide pries his hand away from his mouth. "Calm down."

Ide is talking quietly, softly, soothingly. He talks some more, asking Matsuda when he slept last, where he's been, how much he's had to drink. Matsuda digresses a bit in his answers but he gets there in the end. They stop walking. Matsuda can hear water, and looks round. They're at a wharf. For a minute he thinks it's Daikoku and looks wildly around for the warehouse, but it's a different place.

"So why don't you tell me what's up?" Ide asks.

Matsuda stares at him. "What do you mean?"

"You're an idiot, Matsuda, but not the kind of idiot who thinks it's a good idea to call me up for a rambling chat after midnight. You'd wait until morning."

Matsuda rubs the back of his head. "I - I guess? I don't know…I don't know why I called you. I just did."

Ide is frowning at him. He still looks worried. "I'm glad you did," he says. Then, "you're not okay, are you?"

He has already started saying that he is when Matsuda's mouth changes his mind and he can't stop himself from letting it all out. Misa, expecting Light to come home, filling his days with nothingness, everyone he speaks to from the case being distant and odd because everything's _different_ now, and no Near and no L and no Light, and the _nightmares_.

"And it's all so wrong!" he says, with a wail. "Because it was _Light_. Light was a good guy. Light did things right and well and - and - the Chief, he wasn't stupid, and I _know_ I'm an idiot but the Chief wasn't! And he didn't see it - it was his _son_ and he _didn't see it_!"

Ide moves forward and puts a tentative hand on his shoulder. He doesn't stop him or reason with him. He just lets him know he's there.

"And it just wasn't fair, you know? Because he could have done so much - it could have been L and Light, working together to be better than Kira ever was! But Misa - he was so mean to her! When you look back at it - Ide, you weren't even there, but when you look back on it - you just see - with Takada - and -" Matsuda's starting to get angry, now. Light had no right to throw that all away, throw away the kind of life Matsuda _dreamed_ of -

He doesn't know how much he's saying out loud and how much he's thinking. He paces some more, throws pebbles into the water, and Ide stands with his hands in his pockets and listens. Finally, the last of Matsuda's energy leaves him, and his legs buckle underneath him. He's a heap on the ground and his shoulders start to shake.

Ide sits next to him. He's always been awkward around people, awkward with physical contact, and Matsuda knows this, so it's more of a surprise than anything else when Ide puts an arm round him. Then, it's just a comfort, and Matsuda knows he should be letting it bother him because it's been two months and it's time to put it behind him, but with Ide here just _understanding_, he feels…

He feels far too much. He's been feeling far too much for months. He just wants to sleep, but when he sleeps, he dreams. He has nothing to do and nowhere to go and he just wants it to _stop_.

He doesn't know what to do with himself. So he hugs his knees and cries, and feels like a kid, and Ide sits with him until he's calm enough to stand up. Then, they go home.

-

April is shaping up to be a beautiful month, very bright, very clear. The air is light and there is a constant breeze, enough to ruffle hair and justify long sleeves, but not enough to chill and bother. There are blossoms. Spring is whispering to itself, beginning to poke its nose out of the ground, into the sky. Colours, pale but present, gather in trees.

Lidner has found an apartment. It's big enough for two, even when one of the two is a guy as big as Rester and the other one is as fussy about personal space as Lidner. She thinks about it, and decides that she wouldn't mind living anywhere with Rester, or with Gevanni, because they spent so much time together on the Kira case co-habitation is practically a step _down_.

They'd had to live in each other's heads, really. There wasn't time to explain things fully, wasn't time to trace out thought processes. You just needed to understand and interpret, so you learnt to read minds.

She's been speaking to Rester and found out that he _did_ do the same thing as her. They quit there jobs, packed up, moved on, because suddenly everything felt subtly and unchangeably out of place. Things jarred together and left her pounding her head in frustration, and too many jewellers stocked necklaces with crosses on, so she gave up trying to cope and just thought _I will find another way_.

So she's on her way. Between them, she's pretty sure they can get themselves sorted out.

The doorbell goes. Rester is due to arrive today, so it's no surprise to see him standing there, wearing beige pants, a lumberjack shirt and an awkward expression. Lidner isn't used to seeing him dressed casually and it takes her a moment to absorb it. He's probably doing the same, though - Halle Lidner in a floor length skirt isn't a sight most people are familiar with.

She smiles and ushers him in. Then she laughs and says she shouldn't have to do this because as of now this is his place, too. Rester returns the smile and sets his bag down on the couch. He doesn't seem to have brought much. Lidner didn't, either. Whatever she could, she left behind.

Over dinner (ravioli, Lidner's been practicing and is getting good at making Italian food) Rester asks her about Gevanni. Neither of them have heard much from him and neither of them have gotten much out of it when they have. Lidner wonders aloud if he's okay. Rester doesn't seem to care. That's not like him, so she guesses something happened. She makes a note to follow it up.

Tonight, though, it's a housewarming party. A bottle of wine and some pasta is all they have, that's true, but the company is better for them than any amount of alcohol. Lidner feels safe. If there's ever been a woman that can take care of herself, it's her, but with Rester here, she feels like she doesn't need to.

It's not a feeling that she's used to, but she thinks she likes it.

-

Near is in England.

April in Winchester brings rain. But then, most months bring rain in Britain, so it doesn't strike him as particularly significant. He is at Wammy's, sitting in a room on the top floor, looking out over the grounds. He is here because of Roger - Roger needed to sort things out, transfer control to the next headmaster. Near could have stayed in Japan and a part of him knows this. A part of him knows that there was no need for him to come here at all, but that part is full of logic and reason and the reason that brought him here isn't full of any of that at all.

It's Mello's room. Maybe they thought he was some kind of a curse because the room is the same as he left it, four years ago. Near knows because he came here before he left, in the vain, pathetic hope that he would find Mello sprawled out on the bed, hear him say "I've changed my mind. I still hate you, but to catch Kira I think we should work together after all".

Near's never been one for daydreams but he imagined that moment too many times for it to be called anything else.

He sits in the room as the sun sets, and as April ends he watches moonlight illuminate a small wooden cross down below. There are no ashes and no bodies and no trinkets in that grave, just a small patch of earth dug up and put back. Left as it was, just a little bit different, messed around with, changed forever.

It's a ridiculous metaphor, really. Mello would have hated it.


	4. May

Disclaimer: I don't own Death Note or Kit-Kat. I own a _lot_ of tea though. And will be going to make myself a cup as soon as this is posted. Lyrics are The Smiths.

Note: Swings and roundabouts here, folks. Angst to drunken angst to tea-filled fluff. Not much happens here, to be honest, it's more setting-the-scene for the next few chapters. Just a quick note, here, I _will_ be experimenting with at least one, probably two, pairings in this that I haven't really explored before. I don't think either will come to that much long-run fruition, but will be good for the ride. Lots of fun ideas for where this is going. Updates may take awhile though because…I have failed at real life and need to try to salvage it _quickly_.

Anyway, enjoy.

x

**Chapter Four: May**

_frankly mr shankly i'm a sickening wreck_

_i've got the twenty-first century breathing down my neck_

Spring is starting to force its way through the air properly now, permeating the last hints of frost in the breeze and spreading a lazy, languid warmth through the cities. The first ten days of the month passed idly and without incident, bringing them here, to the tenth.

Matsuda browses in shop windows and wonders what kind of things you buy for a man like Aizawa on his birthday. He decides on a tie and some cufflinks because he really has no clue, and he keeps getting distracted by magazines and top hats and he's pretty sure Aizawa wouldn't appreciate either of _those_.

He pays for the gifts in an over-priced department store and says 'yes' when they ask him if he wants them gift wrapped. He takes his time handing over the money and checking prices on the way out, because today, for the first time in ages, he has had something to do, and that has done more to distract him than anything else. A couple of drinks before bed helps him sleep better but he can't really justify spending his whole day drunk, so for those hours he just has to try to stop himself thinking about being _begged_ to help by a boy who never even bowed his head to God.

He is walking past the café when he sees Misa. She is sitting alone (what else did he expect?) with a cup in front of her. She is dressed demurely, in faded jeans and a long sleeved black top. For a second Matsuda considers just walking by, but by the time he's really formed the thought his hand is already on the door, pushing it open.

A bell tinkles and a couple of people glance up at the new arrival. Misa isn't one of them. Matsuda ducks his head shyly, uncomfortable under the attention. He half turns towards the counter, not sure what he's going to do now he's in here, and then steers himself towards Misa's table.

She is studying the table cloth. Her blonde hair is, as usual, loose about her face. It's grown a little since he last saw her.

"Misa?"

She looks up and at first he thinks she doesn't recognise him. Then she smiles and says, "Oh, hi, Matsu!" and pushes out the chair opposite her with her toes. Matsuda grins a little awkwardly and sits down. He asks how it's going and she nods and tells him 'fine', and then the question is flipped over and he answers the same way. They don't say anything else until a woman, a few years younger than Misa, floats over and asks Matsuda what he wants.

When his order arrives (plain coffee and a slice of cake) Misa comments that it looks good. Matsuda has been studying her face now since he came in and he's pretty sure there's something wrong. She is careful to fix her features into the same smiles, the same casual, easy happiness, but there's an undercurrent of tension and uncertainty. He feels it more than sees it, because he's always been that little bit more in tune with Misa - the two of them, the emotional ones, never quite on the same wavelength as everyone else, never quite keeping up.

Matsuda digs a fork into his cake. It's a little dry and crumbles under the force of the metal.

"So," he starts, at a loss of where to go next, "how - how have you been?"

"Misa has been fine," she answers, arranging sugar packets into a pattern. "I miss Light, though."

She doesn't ask when he's coming back. Matsuda's never been bright but that sets alarm bells of in even _his_ brain.

"We - haven't heard from him," he says. It's not a lie but guilt is still twisting its way up inside him, tightening its grip on his stomach and chest.

"Misa knows you'd have told her if you had."

"Yeah, that's right."

Again, silence. Misa continues to play with sugar packets and Matsuda tries to convince himself that he doesn't feel too ill to eat his cake.

Misa looks tired. He wonders if she's been sleeping, he wonders how much she knows about Light and about Kira, he wonders how much she _remembers_…if he were a bit smarter, he'd do the same thing Ryuzaki always used to do and try to work it out with sneaky, innocuous little questions. But he's not, and never has been, anything like Ryuzaki, or like Light, and he can't help but sigh because people like that are _exactly_ what Misa needs right now. Smart people, people who are beautiful or eccentric, not slow, cowardly, bumbling little Matsuda.

He's the only one there, though, so he has to try to help somehow.

-

It is very early in the morning. The sun is just crossing over the horizon, beams racing across fields and roads to light up the world. Everywhere, people are starting to wake up, go through their morning routines and being their days. Things are starting to grind into motion, cogs and wheels turning together to pull the sun higher into the sky.

Distantly, there is the noise of a plane. The dew-stained morning is quiet apart from this, a dull humming growing louder and louder. Then the machine is overhead, engines whirring and billows of white emitting from the back of it. It passes over.

Curled in one of the chairs is a boy. He is nineteen, almost, and has his feet pulled up against him, heels resting on the edge of the airline chair. His is the window seat, with the blind pulled halfway up and sunlight reflecting off the white of his clothes, his skin, his hair.

He is asleep, and this is unusual. This boy does not sleep, especially not in a place so public as an aeroplane. The man next to him reads a book on insects, and turns the page quietly. Every now and then, he scratches his chin and glances over to his young charge. He is glad that the boy is sleeping, even if the boy will be silently and imperceptibly frustrated about it when he wakes up. Because he _hasn't_ been sleeping enough, and they've been moving around so, so fast - Bosnia, then France, then back to Japan, England, then San Francisco…now they're crossing the Atlantic and are heading to Madrid. The man thinks it will be too warm for the boy, but at least the white he wears will keep him a little cooler than black leather.

He's dropped from exhaustion, the man thinks. He can keep this up for a month, maybe, but then he's got to fall, to crash, because not even _L _took on this many cases, this fast, this young. After so much.

He exploded into the detective world by solving the case of the century single-handedly, and the history books will know nothing of it. The man rubs an eyebrow and returns to his book. He tries not to think too much about the boy, because it messes with the mind, to try to work out someone so different, so abstract and removed. He fishes out a phone and sends three messages, containing contact details for the hotel they'll be staying at. The old SPK members are kept up to date on where they're going and how to get in touch. The man isn't sure why this is insisted upon, why the boy thinks he has some debt to repay or some honour to show, but he goes along with it, on the off-chance that Near will let someone, _anyone_, help him.

-

Matsuda gets far too drunk and Mogi offers to drive him home. Matsuda doesn't really give an answer so Ide answers for him, a resounding "yes please and thank you".

Mogi can't really say he's surprised. Matsuda has passed out so he slings him over his shoulder and carries him downstairs, after bidding a quick farewell to Aizawa. Eriko had been casting the young cop dirty looks all evening, as he consumed more and more of the alcohol on offer, and got gradually more obnoxious. Mogi is sort of glad he passed out of his own accord, otherwise, he would have knocked Matsuda out himself.

He tucks him into the front seat and buckles in his limp form. He pats Matsuda's face a few times, half-heartedly trying to wake him up. It doesn't work. Mogi sighs, and moves round to the driver's side. He starts up the car, and pulls away. Matsuda wakes up.

"S'happenin'?" he mumbles.

"I'm taking you home," Mogi answers shortly.

"Why'sat then?"

"You're drunk."

"Oh." Matsuda lapses into a rather thoughtful silence. Mogi thinks he might have passed out again from the sheer effort of it all. "S'happnin'?" he repeats, after a few minutes.

"Try to decide on being awake or being out and stay that way, okay?"

"Okay," Matsuda replies, and promptly ignores the advice. He drifts in an out of consciousness for the rest of the drive, and comes round for the last time as Mogi's headlights illuminate Matsuda's building.

"C'mon." Mogi clambers round and helps the younger man out. Matsuda slumps onto his shoulder, and the two of them together makes it tricky to negotiate the stairs (even trickier to open the door, when Mogi has to fumble around inside Matsuda's pocket looking for the key, without dropping him) but eventually they make it into the apartment.

Mogi deposits him on the sofa and glances around the place. It really is a mess. Clothes are strewn about the place and there's a faint smell that makes Mogi wrinkle his nose. He rubs his head and lets out a breath. Matsuda's in a bit of a state, it seems.

Mogi only half blames him. He doesn't mind so much that Matsuda's feeling this bad about everything; more, he expected him to cope with it better. Evidently, he's not. Five years ago, Mogi wouldn't have cared. Now, Mogi wants to pull him out of it, make sure he's okay. He wants to take care of his _friend_, and stop Kira from hurting him ever again.

The times, they are a-changing.

-

Lidner is sleeping when her phone starts going off. She jolts awake, struggles with the sheets and grasps for the small, bleeping object, only to find out that she's forgotten to change the tone again and it's only a text. Too wide awake now to go back to sleep, she flips it open and checks the message.

_Moving again, new contact number as follows…_

She smiles. Despite being woken up at - she checks a clock - four in the morning, despite it being the first night of good rest she'd have had in a while, she smiles, because…Near is still thinking of them. He's still keeping them in the loop.

She yawns, but it's a waking-up yawn and not a falling-asleep yawn. Reluctantly she rolls out of bed and pulls a robe over her pyjamas. She pushes hair back out of her face and heads for the kitchen. She fills the kettle, and spoons instant tea and sugar into a mug.

"He got you, too, huh?"

Lidner turns round, and Rester is in the doorway, similarly garbed. She quirks an eyebrow. "Phone woke you up?"

"Indeed." Rester stretches his arms above his head and moves into the room. "Whatever you're having one, would you make me one too?"

"Tea," she says, picking up a second mug from the shelf.

"Oh, lovely. How British."

She rolls her eyes, but gently, and pulls a pack of biscuits out of the cupboard.

"Making quite the party of it," Rester comments dryly.

Lidner casts him a look as the kettle comes to the boil. He is lean, defined under the thin layers of cloth he's wearing. She looks away, and begins to pour hot water. "Get me the milk."

It appears next to her, Rester's big hand moving away from the carton. He shakes it, mumbling about condensation, and wipes it on her robe. She swipes at him with a Kit-Kat.

"Easy, easy! You could take an eye out with that."

Lidner frowns and regards the biscuit. "It's…chocolate and wafers."

"Being wielded by _you_," Rester points out. "I'm not counting _anything_ out."

Lidner can't help but laugh. She's been laughing a lot recently. Since the Kira case ended, she knows they've both been out there on their own separate worlds, going through things no-one they used to know could understand. To have someone there who's been through the same thing, who just _understands_…it's good for both of them.

And Rester isn't so bad, not at all as harsh or severe as he comes across. He's all professionalism in the workplace but he's eased off since they moved in together, he's easier to be around, he jokes, he smiles. And Lidner's starting to relax.

She hands him the mug. "Here. Don't worry, I haven't poisoned it."

"I know. I've been deliberately keeping an eye on it."

The jokes are bad, she concedes, little more than banter. But it's more than she's been used to.

And Rester _really_ isn't that bad at all, once you get to know him.


	5. June

Disclaimer: I don't own Death Note or any sense of how long a chapter should be. Quote is Lucy Maud Montgommery.

Note: Oh my God this chapter ran on for five freaking thousand words. I mean what the hell. i knew it would be long when I started it because of what I wanted to achieve in it but WHAT THE HELL. Most of my oneshots aren't this long! THIS IS ABSURD. But...enjoy? Take it as an apology that I won't be updating much from now on. Maybe some Antivillain before November 1st but probably no more of this til December. Some more comments at the end today, because I really actually love the way this turned out and want to just let you get on to reading it.

x

**June**

_in this world you've just got to hope for the best and prepare for the worst and take whatever God sends_

June is tepid and meek compared to May. The weather stays more or less the same, an easy warmth drifting through the air and the vague scent of flowers swimming into the senses.

Life goes on as life must, and the month is slipping by almost unnoticed. Everyone is tired, the sun and the atmosphere making things stagnant, stuck in some kind of stasis. People find themselves stopping, unable to think backwards or forwards, left feeling the way they were at the end of May.

For Matsuda, this means a relentless feeling of unease, a pit of guilt in his stomach and a deep, rooted fear that something is going to go horrible, horribly wrong.

He meets Misa for coffee on Mondays. She orders something different every time, trying out variations, and once it would have been out of her curiosity, her desire to try everything and anything, but now, Matsuda finds her selections listless, like she can't settle, like she needs change.

He orders a simple black, and they talk for an hour, and go home.

On the second Monday of the month - the fifth time they've met for coffee - she asks him if he wants to go and see a movie. They end up seeing something God-awful with Hideki Ryuuga's younger and even more talentless brother in the starring role, opposite some girl with wide, simpering eyes and an enormous bust. Misa falls asleep twice and Matsuda isn't as hungry for the popcorn he bought her as he thought he was, so they leave just as Ryuuga-the-younger is proposing to the girl.

Misa is hovering. She stays a few paces behind him, catching up when he slows down to wait for her. She stares off, seems to forget where she's going, and asks Matsuda twice, in the fragmented pieces of conversation they pull together, what the name of the movie they went to watch was. Matsuda keeps casting worried looks at her over his shoulder, and she's always looking somewhere else - the sky, the pavement, the lights in windows and the stars coming into life above them.

He doesn't know what to do. He doesn't even know what's _wrong,_ though he could probably guess. Light. It's _always_ been Light. As long as he's known her, whenever Misa - beautiful Misa, genuine, simple, happy Misa - was upset or down, it could always be traced back to life. And for the second time in his life, Matsuda hates Light Yagami.

And because he was the one who killed him (because even though the autopsy showed 'heart attack' as the cause of death, a part of Matsuda is never going to believe that, never going to be willing to admit it was a Death Note) Matsuda hates himself, too.

He drops back. "Misa-Misa?"

She looks up at him, with empty eyes. It's scary but it's almost reassuring - Misa is the only person, apart from Matsuda, who's ever been _honest_ and _open _when they feel something, because they just haven't been able to cover it up.

"Misa?" he says again, more quietly. "Misa, what's wrong?"

Misa blinks. "I miss Light," she says, slowly, and even more quietly than Matsuda.

Matsuda swallows. "He'll be - I mean, we're doing what -"

Matsuda's never been a good liar.

"Matsu. Will you take Misa home, please?"

Misa's voice has gotten even smaller, and she clutches her bag to her chest. Her skirts are longer these days, and her shirts modest and plain. She still shines, though, despite the sorrow clinging to her and her abandonment of flamboyant clothes. To Matsuda, she is still beautiful.

They drives along darkening roads in silence, until Misa's apartment comes into view and Matsuda slows the car.

"Not here," Misa says suddenly, and Matsuda glances across, confused. "Your home."

Matsuda's confusion increased. "What do you mean?"

"I - Misa doesn't like to be alone. And Light -"

He doesn't want to press the matter. He can already see tears gathering at the corner of her eyes. It's been far too long already, and she's been on her own so much. He turns the car around.

Matsuda's seen Misa's apartment before but she's never seen his, and as his key scrapes in the lock he suddenly feels embarrassed. His place is so much smaller, so much messier, with empty boxes of microwave meals and old bottles scattered over surfaces. It's too late to make excuses now, though, because the door is swinging open and he's flicking on the light.

Misa stands in the doorway, head bowed. Matsuda tugs at his shirt, feeling awkward and helpless and completely, totally lost as to what to do next. Eventually, he offers her a drink.

"Whatever you're having," she tells him, in the same, small voice, but he feels guilty about offering her the same sub-par, sink-cleaner style stuff he's accustomed to, so he roots around for a bottle of wine and finds one that's a little cheap but the best quality he's got.

As the volume in the bottle decreases, the television gets turned on and Misa moves closer to Matsuda on the sofa. By the time they're on the last glass, Misa is tucked up against him and the credits of a movie they caught almost-near the beginning are beginning to scroll up the screen. Misa yawns, and her hand moves up his chest to rest on his shoulder.

Matsuda is a little bit tipsy and probably didn't know any better to begin with, so he puts an arm around her. They stay like that for a few minutes, as the credits music fades into adverts, and they can each feel the other's heartbeat.

Then, Misa leans up. The hand on his shoulder moves to his cheek, and she is hovering above him, and his breath catches and she moves down. Her lips are as red as the wine they've just finished when they land on his, in a sweet kiss that he almost didn't expect. For a second, Matsuda isn't even sure what's happening, but then he realises, and his eyelids flutter closed. He kisses her back -

- And Misa pulls away.

She leaps up from the couch, face flushed and fire in her eyes. "I _knew _it!"

"Huh?" Matsuda's having a hard time closing his jaw, and he doesn't really know what's going on at _all_ anymore, but he tries to get to his feet anyway, and falls backwards onto the couch. "Misa - I - you - I thought -"

"No, no, no!" Misa is shaking her head, and Matsuda notices that she doesn't look _angry_ any more, she looks _devastated_, horrified, and, much to his dismay, she starts to cry. "No, Matsu! It's not - you don't _see_?"

Matsuda just gapes at her.

"Matsu," she says again, and her voice is strained, pleading and desperate. "You don't see, do you? Misa knows - Misa has _always_ known you liked her…"

And suddenly, through the flimsy veil of cheap wine and exhaustion, Matsuda realises.

"But I'd never do anything because of Light."

Misa nods. "You never would." She rubs at her face, tears smearing the little makeup she still wears, trickling down to her collar. "But - but Matsu, you _kissed_ me…"

And it was all the explanation she needed.

-

"Misa _knows_?"

Matsuda nods miserably. "I think so, anyway." He fumbles in the pocket of his coat, pulls out a pack of cigarettes. Ide raises his eyebrows.

"When did you start smoking?"

"Couple of weeks ago." Matsuda searches the coat a second time, this time for a lighter. When he emerges, he can't find the cigarettes, until he looks over at Ide and sees that he's tipped them out of the box, and is methodically breaking them into pieces.

"Ide - what the -?!"

"You have enough problems without developing lung cancer too," Ide says pleasantly, continuing to snap the cigarettes.

"I paid for those!"

"I'll refund you."

"I don't want money, I want _those_!" Matsuda jabs his finger at the pieces of paper and tobacco.

Ide looks at him innocently. He snaps the last cigarette in two. "You're welcome to them," he says, pushing them over. "Now, tell me about Misa."

By the time he's finished, Ide's face has darkened and he looks like he's beginning to regret ruining the only stress relief they have on hand. He rolls a piece of cigarette over his kitchen table, and glances across at Matsuda, sat on the other side.

"Where is she?"

"Still at my place. She stayed the night in my room. Don't look at me like that - I was on the couch!"

Ide shakes his head. "This isn't good."

"You're telling me," Matsuda groans, burying his face in his hands. His eyes look red and his hair is a mess, and Ide wonders how much more he drank after the wine.

"We need to tell Aizawa. We need to get people over there. We need to keep her _safe_, Matsuda."

"Safe?" The younger man looks confused.

Ide stares at him. "She just found out her fiancé is dead! We need to keep her safe from _herself_!"

Matsuda pales. "Oh my - I hadn't even thought -" He is pulling his coat on, disregarding sentence structure entirely. "I - she - key - in my cabinets - kitchen knives -"

Standing up, Ide grabs him by the shoulder. "Hey, calm down, you're no use to anyone like this. Get a grip. Downstairs, my car. I'm driving, you're in no state."

Dragging Matsuda after him, he heads for the parking lot, and Misa.

-

Stephen Loud is riding high. He has gone back to using his real name, gone back to his real job. He's gotten promoted, he's gotten put on bigger and bigger cases. He's got a _beautiful _girlfriend who's already talking about living together, and he's putting Kira behind him.

Sasha is planning a romantic night in for the two of them. He's got a week off, so they're staying at her friend's place in Chicago. He's out at a department store, choosing a shirt, bags containing wine and a silver necklace leaning against the door of the changing booth, when his phone goes off.

_We are dealing with a case in Chicago. Hotel number is as follows…_

Angrily, hestuffs his phone back into the pocket of his jacket. Why does Near keep telling him where he is? He supposes he should be appreciative of it, that the inheritor of the title of 'world's greatest detective' wants to let _him_ know where he is, in case they need each other's help, but really it just irritates him. He wants to forget all about Kira and L and Near and Rester and Lidner, but he _can't_, not when Near bothers him every few days with updates on his location.

He's thought about changing his number, and never has, and he can't explain why he cancels the dinner with Sasha and ends up searching a directory for the location of Near's hotel. He can't explain why he calls the number, why he thinks about hanging up when an old man's voice answers it, why he agrees to come round that evening and why he ends up standing outside room 31, carrying the bags with the wine and jewellery, feeling awkward and self-conscious.

And he can't explain, when the door opens to reveal Near, all of five foot and still clad completely in white, clutching a couple of jigsaw pieces, why he suddenly feels like he's finally come home.

"Gevanni," Near says, and he realises how long it's been since anyone called him that. "Please come in."

For his part, Near has no idea why Gevanni has called him. He answers the door, lets him into the room, asks him if he would like anything to drink. Near is being _hospitable_, for perhaps the first time in his life, and he won't admit it but the honest answer is that he's doing it because he's happy to have the company.

Gevanni sits in a chair by the window and accepts a cup of tea that Roger hands him. He looks around, he seems uncomfortable, and Near curls into a chair opposite him and starts stacking cards on the table. Gevanni watches him for a while, sipping his tea, until Near has built a house of cards and all the tea is gone, so there is no excuse not to talk.

"Hi."

"Good evening."

"How's it going?"

"Fine. Why are you here?"

Gevanni looks a little taken aback by Near's abruptness, but he really should have known better than to expect the young detective to skirt around a point.

"I -" and then he stops. Frowns. Inspects his tea cup. Near looks up at him once, expressionless, before returning to expanding his card tower.

"I don't know," he says at last, and then, "Nothing seems to stick."

Near doesn't ask what he means. He doesn't expect that Gevanni even knows.

"It's like everything from before is gone," Gevanni says slowly, frowning again, trying to work out what he wants to say. "It's like…oh, I don't even know what it's like. Things are different. _Everything_ is different, and I don't know _why_. It was just a job - I mean, I came, I saw, I kicked ass, right? I did as I was supposed to, I helped catch Kira…"

He gets to his feet, moves to the window, stares down at the street. He runs a hand through his dark hair and turns to face Near again, looking distracted and - inexplicably - Mediterranean in his distress. Near thinks he understands why Gevanni chose an Italian fake name.

"But this case…God, it won't go away. It's everywhere. Kira, everything - and you hear someone mention it and you think, I was there, I _did_ that, _I _was up all night making a copy of a notebook that can kill people so we didn't all _die_. It's just - I thought it would be over, that I could go back to my life, my job, but…nothing sticks. Nothing feels right, it's always, always, _always_…" He trails off, evidently not sure what it 'always' is, after all.

"Nothing will ever be the same," Near says, and it sounds absent, casual, and makes Gevanni stare at him.

"What?"

"Nothing will ever be the same," Near repeats, and the final card of the tower makes it break under its own weight. Cards slump under one another, some flying off the table in the down-rush of air. "You need to accept this fact and learn to live with it. And talk to someone else, like Lidner, because I am not a guidance counsellor. But you may sleep here tonight, if you wish. I will be busy so you can use that bed." He gestures to the other end of the room.

Gevanni sits down where he's been standing, not even bothering not move the few paces towards the chair, and Near returns to his castle of cards.

After a while, Gevanni gets to his feet. "I never thanked you," he says suddenly. Near doesn't look at him, but tilts his head just a tiny amount, to show he's listening.

"For, uh, Kira, I guess. You were always…even when we didn't know what we were doing or felt it was just hopeless, you always…sort of…got us on track. Without interfering or being obnoxious or anything. So…thank you. Right."

Near still doesn't look up. "You're welcome," he says at length.

Another pause in their drawn-out conversation.

"Do you know where Rester and Lidner are?"

"Lidner is in Chicago now. I am seeing her tomorrow. I believe Rester is with her."

"Together?" Gevanni sounds surprised. Near doesn't respond. "Do you - do you have their contact details?"

"Yes. Don't you?"

"I…I deleted them."

"Then you are welcome to wait here for them to regain their details."

Gevanni glances over at him. "Couldn't you just give me -?"

"I could not. It would be a breach of confidentiality."

"I already had their details!"

Near finally turns to look at them. "But you deleted them."

Gevanni can't respond to that.

"Your choices are simple. Stay here and face them, or leave and keep running." Near's voice is a little colder now, impassive, honest. Gevanni wishes he would stop staring at him. "I have nothing further to offer."

And he falls silent. Gevanni stands around awkwardly for a while, before moving over to the bed. He'll stay until morning. He doesn't have to wait for Halle and Rester. He can just…he can just…

He can decide in the morning.

-

Lidner stares around the sparse hotel room. She already knew that Near liked things minimalist, but this seems slightly ridiculous. There is a table, there are two chairs, there is a bed, and there is a tiny, tiny cabinet. She and Rester had been instructed to enter through the adjoining room (Roger's, she finds out later) and she remembers that there had been a_ lot_ more furniture in there. She wonders if Near had his moved across.

And then _Gevanni_ wanders out of the bathroom, and all thoughts of furniture fly out of her head.

He catches sight of her. "Uh. Hi."

She stares at him. "You…here? I didn't know you'd be coming. I didn't know you were in Chicago." She hesitates before adding. "I didn't even know if you were still _alive_."

Gevanni laughs nervously and ruffles his own hair. "Um…yeah. I guess I have been out of contact for a while."

The door swings open. Rester is followed by Near, who is dwarfed even more than usual by the man's size. Somehow, though, Rester looks very much at home standing beside the boy prodigy, as if his sole aim in his life is to protect him from any threat the other people in the room might pose. When Rester sees Gevanni, his face darkens.

"What are you doing here?" He sounds hostile.

Gevanni takes a small step backwards. He looks almost as surprised at Lidner feels.

"Rester?" She turns to him. "What's this about?"

"When I talked to you," Rester says, his voice cool and his eyes fixed on Gevanni's, "I received the _distinct_ impression you wanted nothing more to do with any of us."

Gevanni looks from him to Lidner, as if hoping for support. Lidner doesn't have a clue what's going on and so isn't offering her support to _anyone_.

"I - Rester, it wasn't that I -"

At this point, Near seems to decide he's been standing up for long enough. He walks forward, so he's standing between the three of them, and settles down onto the floor. He looks down at his hands, unusually empty. Lidner takes the cue. On the coffee table, there are a couple of action figures, so she moves over and scoops them up. As soon as she hands them to them, Near begins to engage them in battle. He doesn't look up at her, doesn't thank her. It's like old times.

Except for the fact that Rester is looking distinctly mutinous and Gevanni, distinctly frightened.

"I don't mean to interrupt this little staring contest," Lidner says, after a few moments, "but could you two - no, in fact, even one of you would be just fine - please let me know what's going on?"

For a second, both of them seem to be waiting for the other to answer. Then, Rester turns to her, his shoulders relaxing a little. "I called Gevanni back in March. I was going to ask him for some help because, you know, I'd just basically sold up everything I owned."

"Okay. And?"

"And he wasn't very _forthcoming_, were you, 'Stephen'?"

Gevanni looks guilty. "I was - I wanted to forget it all, alright?" he blurts. "I just…I just _didn't_ want to have anything to do with that case anymore."

"Or to do with us?" Lidner asks quietly.

Gevanni nods, cheeks burning. Rester folds his arms, as if his point has been made. Lidner, she just feels a little shocked, she wonders why Rester hasn't mentioned this before and somewhere, deep down, she can feel a hollow little pit of betrayal and sadness.

But the Kira case has caused enough hostility and hatred.

"Well, that's a shame," she says. "But you are here now, today, meaning you have obviously sought out Near because I doubt he's the type to come looking for one of us. I'm going to assume that this means you've realised there's no running from this case."

Gevanni nods again. He's not looking at any of them.

"In which case," Lidner ploughs on, briskly, determined to get this pushed into the past, "in which case, you are evidently _sorry_ for being dismissive of Rester and we're all going to be _friends_ again."

Both Rester and Gevanni turn to stare at her. Near doesn't stop playing with the toys, but he does tilt one of their heads up to stare at her, mimicking the other two. It's a burst of humour from him that she didn't expect, didn't even know he was capable of, and before she can stop herself, her face breaks out into a wide, sunny smile.

"Evidently you two have had problems," she says, still smiling, and they are staring at her like she has two heads. "But there really have been more than enough problems later, so kiss and make up, or do whatever it is boys do when they have a dispute. But don't fight. Because I _will_ intervene, and with all due respect, you _will_ get your asses kicked."

"Lidner is correct," Near says from the floor. "I am already tired of the hostility here. Please reconcile your differences peaceably. Fighting will damage things."

Lidner almost asks 'what things', but suggests Rester and Gevanni shake hands instead. Grudgingly, reaching over Near's head, they comply.

"See? Not so hard, hmm?"

They both move back quite quickly.

"Well, we can work on that," she adds. She's still smiling, and she doesn't know why. But having the three of them here, in one room…she can't get over it.

Hostility and hotel room aside, it really _is_ like old times.

-

A week later, in Japan, it is Sayu Yagami's birthday.

There is no celebration. Somehow, out of nowhere, Matsuda remembers, and winds up on Sachiko's doorstop with a bunch of flowers and a clumsily wrapped present. Sachiko regards him critically. He looks vaguely unshaven and his shirt is a little crumpled, but obviously clean. Aizawa has been visiting every now and again, and she has heard some of the horror stories about Matsuda. But he seems sober, and he's obviously made an effort, even if the flowers are a little wilted. Sachiko thought she'd stopped caring a long time ago, but today, she doesn't have the heart to turn him away.

"Come in," she says, stepping back from the door.

Matsuda has been to visit exactly eight times. The first time, she let him in gratefully, happy to receive visitors. The second time, he mentioned Light, and caught himself, and after that she turned him away every time until today.

The fact that he came back has to mean something, but Sachiko is so, so tired, so she resolves to leave that mystery to work itself out.

She offers him a choice of water or juice, says she's not offering alcohol because he's driving. They both know that's not the reason. Matsuda is awkward and embarrassed and Sachiko is getting far too old for any of this. She tells him Sayu is in the living room. He hovers, looking uncertain as to what he should do with the flowers and present.

"Take them to her," Sachiko says. "She probably won't notice…but maybe, if she does…"

She cannot keep the hurt out of her voice, and Matsuda has the good grace to disappear next door. She can hear him saying hello, asking her how she is, and starting up a monologue.

"…so, yeah, I remember it was your birthday, Sayu. Ha, I know, I know, I normally have a terrible memory, but I'm actually pretty good with birthdays and stuff. Ide says it's because I just like people. He also said it was because birthdays meant parties and parties meant free drink, but I like the first part better. Um, so anyway, how old are you? Man, I can't believe I forgot! And I was doing so well with the whole 'remembering' thing…"

Sachiko peers around the doorway. She watches at Matsuda takes a seat opposite Sayu, barely stopping for breath. He is rambling and ranting, he's gone from the topic of his memory to the topic of Ide, and how he's doing, and that he was thinking about getting a dog. It's irrelevant, the kind of stuff you'd say to someone you were used to seeing on a daily basis. Sachiko isn't even sure Sayu knows who Ide is. Matsuda is just _talking_ to her, as if they're friends, as if it's normal for him to come round like this.

Sachiko never talks to Sayu like that, because Sayu doesn't respond and she doesn't want to bother her with trivialities, doesn't want to force her into the world she so obviously doesn't want to be part of.

She is about to move in to stop _Matsuda_ bothering her, but then she catches sight of Sayu's face. Her eyes are fixed on Matsuda's face, her head tilted to the side as if she's listening. Sachiko isn't sure if her daughter understands what the man is saying, but one thing is clear - she's sure as hell trying to. Sachiko watches in wonder as Sayu begins to respond, in little, insignificant ways - when the topic turns back to Ide, she raises her head a little, because it's a name she recognises. Sachiko imagines her storing all this information away, and wonders what it would be like if, one day, it all clicked together and she just _came back_.

"…uh, yeah, anyway. I've gone off topic a little bit." Matsuda laughs shyly. "Oh, hey, look - I got you're a present. I, um, I don't really know if you'll like it. Or - you know. I'm not really very good at getting presents for girls. Or anyone. But girls especially. I'm - oh, just - here you go."

And Sayu actually reaches out and takes it from him. She lifts her arms, holds them out, closes her fingers around the present and begins to peel of the wrapping, and Sachiko just _stares_.

"They're, um, they're fairytales," Matsuda is explaining, and Sachiko can see the title printed on the book from where she's standing, so she thinks this is a little unnecessary. "A guy called…um…" he leans across quite indiscreetly, checking the name on the cover, "Hans Christian Anderson. I think he was European. But uh - I don't know. They looked good so I thought you might like them."

Sayu studies the book for a few moments. She opens it, smoothing a hand over the printed pages, her eyelids lowering as she scans a few lines. She looks up. She smiles at Matsuda. Leaning across, she squeezes his hand very gently. Matsuda's face splits into a grin.

"Um, I hope you like it, then!" he says. "I'd probably better be going, your mom is going to be wondering what I'm getting up to in here." He laughs again, and Sachiko wonders how he can sound so _happy_, when he's obviously not, especially from what Aizawa said.

She moves back from the door before Matsuda can catch her spying on him.

"Oh, I forgot to give her the flowers!" he says, as he arrives next to her. "Well, they were more for you, anyway." He smiles awkwardly and holds them out to her.

Speechless, Sachiko takes them from him. She has seen him work wonders, today, and suddenly feels horrible for turning him away before.

"Matsuda," she says, as he's on his way out. "Why don't you come round for dinner next week? I'm sure Sayu would be pleased to see you."

Matsuda gapes at her. "Really?" he asks eagerly.

Sachiko is a little taken aback by his enthusiasm. "Yes, really," she replies, rubbing her cheek.

He beams at her. "Thank you, Mrs - uh, I mean, um -"

"You may call me Sachiko."

His smile widens. "Thank you, Sachiko!"

And then he's gone. Sachiko finds herself, inexplicably, unbelievably, _smiling_ for the first time in months. Matsuda's type of simple, good-natured happiness is infectious, she decides. And then, just as quickly, she decides she will bake a cake for Sayu's birthday after all.

-

Matsuda's good mood carries him through four days. It carries him through work, and sleep, and for four, whole days, he doesn't touch a single drop of alcohol.

Then, on the thirtieth, when the clock is showing twenty to twelve, Ide calls. He's frantic.

"Matsuda, tell me you haven't been drinking."

"I haven't been drinking," Matsuda replies, confused. "Ide, what's -"

"Oh, thank God. Thank God. Listen, you have to go over to Misa's right now."

"What? Why?!"

"Because - look, Aizawa just got a letter from her that was meant to arrive tomorrow morning, and she's going to do something, Matsuda, I know it." He's talking fast, garbling his words, and Matsuda is already reaching for a jacket.

"You're closest," Ide is saying over the phone. "I'm on my way and so is Aizawa but you're right on the doorstep, so please, Matsuda, just hurry."

"I'm on my way," he says, and stuffs the phone into his pocket, not even sure if he's turned it off.

He runs three red lights on the way to Misa's apartment and almost causes a collision at the turning into her road, but there's time to worry about traffic fines later. He jumps out of his car, doesn't lock it, and it tearing up the stairs. Her door is locked and he wishes he had Mogi with him, but he doesn't, so he has to rely on adrenaline to break it down. Miraculously, it works and he barrels into the room.

"Misa!"

Hanging from a rope she's fixed to the ceiling, Misa's body swings limply in front of him. A stool she obviously used to get herself to the right height has been kicked aside. Matsuda swings around, searching for something to cut the rope, and he yanks open drawers until he finds a knife. Misa's short and the rope is pretty long so he's tall enough to hack at it without assistance, and eventually, her body collapses onto the ground.

"Misa!" he yells again, not sure what he wants to achieve. He left the door open, and suddenly, as he struggles to untie the rope from her neck, it's filled by Ide's form.

"Oh my God!" Ide chokes. Then, Matsuda hears him talking into a phone. "We need an ambulance. Attempted suicide, hanging. Er, the address, is…"

Matsuda stops listening. He gets the rope free. He has no idea what do to now. He searches frantically for a pulse, and, as June fades into July, he finds one, weak, fading, but _there_.

x

Second note: And I bet you totally thought I couldn't get cliffhangers into a story with a month-a-chapter format. But I so _can_, and have. Though it's really not much of a cliffie for anyone who has read DN13. Argh. I know Rester was a bit too harsh on Gevanni for ONE rude phonecall but idk, let's say he bears a grudge. Also I kept feeling Lidner was a bit out of character here, but I am seriously starting to like this lady, what with this and Antivillain. Also, I am worried by the fact that with both Matsuda AND Matt, whenever they appear in my stories they take over. Maybe it is the 'Mat' thing. i was exposed to a Matt in a video game today and was instantly sad when someone started smashing his stuff up.

Anyway, hope you enjoyed. For once, I'm actually going to ask for reviews, because I wound up working on this for most of today - my last day of freedom before some terrifying work experience tomorrow - so would be grateful for feedback :D


	6. July

Disclaimer: I don't own Death Note. Lyrics are...uh, Heavens, I think? Sorry for poor crediting today. I know the song's called Patent Pending and one of the guys was from Alkaline Trio. And yes, I'm actually too lazy to Google it. Don't sue me for sloth, internets.

Note: DIDJA MISS ME, PASSAGES READERS. It's been ages, hasn't it? But to be fair I left you with an epically long chapter for what I'm used to. This one checks in at a mere 3200 words. Pitiful. Anyway, I hope you enjoy it. Was actually fun to write once I got going. What does everyone think of this style, by the way? The multiple storylines? 'Cause I'm finding them rad as hell. Great fun to write, only question is who gets a say in which chapter. And with that, we're half way through.

Oh by the way. I introduced a couple of things here. One, a pairing I've been planning on it starting to dig its feet in. Two, a complete twist I had no plans for until it started appearing on my computer screen. But I like it so I'm totally going to run with it. I hope the backlask against this twist (it's obvious when you get there) won't be too big. Because I am thinking I can have fun with this. Enjoy.

x

**July**

_high time we swore off everything we knew_

The first day of July scorches and crackles. Heat sears through the air, and every window in the district is open, every air conditioning unit cranked up to full. It's no time to be in a hospital, inside the clamminess of the walls, surrounded by monitors and machines pumping out warmth. But that's where Aizawa finds himself, asking hurried questions of a flushed-looking nurse. She's polite, and happy to help, and keeps apologising for the heat like she's the one who asked the sun to blaze so ferociously on this day of all days.

A little way down the corridor – this white tunnel arching into corners and wards – Matsuda is sat on the floor. His knees are pulled up and he's cradling his head in his arms. From what Ide's said, this whole thing seems to be pretty much his fault.

But Aizawa's never going to say that to him. Once upon a time, he might have. Today, he's different. Today, he doesn't want to see Matsuda crumble to pieces in front of him. So he nods to the nurse, thanks her for her help, and in three, quick strides, is standing next to Matsuda's hunched, defeated form.

The younger cop looks up. His eyes are red and puffy.

Aizawa doesn't say a word. He jerks his head, motions him into the room.

Misa's lying there, on a bed, looking for all the world like an angel, in the pure white of the hospital gown she's garbed in, with her blonde hair sprayed out across the pillow. There are tubes of plastic winding their way over her, though, and no angel needs life support, or a little IV drip in their arm. And there haven't been many angels with an ugly mark on their neck, thick and violent and much more red than Matsuda's eyes. The ones with marks like that – well, they haven't stayed around very long.

Like a fallen angel, crashed down to earth, Aizawa thinks idly, and then it's back to business. The nurse is behind them, changing Misa's medication.

Blearily, she starts to wake up.

-

July has always reminded Near of Mello, even though it is irrational and sentimental, because it is hot, after the blossoms have faded and before autumn tempers the climate. It is brash and loud and _obnoxiously _hot, and there is very little beautiful about it at all, but people still spend their years waiting for it.

Near knows he could spend the rest of his life waiting for Mello, and it wouldn't make the damndest bit of difference.

He wonders why he cares so much. If he can break this down into its component parts, if he can understand that mystery that _was_ Mihael Keehl (as he came to learn his name was, and it stings, in some sad part of him, that Kira knew that name before he did) – then he can get rid of this fuzzy little ache inside of him, this squirming discomfort, this twang of guilt and loss.

He's the winner. He's not meant to be feeling like this. Not this long after –

Mello wouldn't be feeling like this if it was he who had gone down in flames with an unbeating heart.

He wouldn't be – would he?

What if –

Near shakes himself. No. Stop it, _Nate_. He thinks of himself in his first name for a reason – it reminds him, in the midst of his success, that he is not invulnerable. He still has his weakness, his exposed skin, and caring about a dead blond boy is going to wind up being far, far more dangerous that his God damn name.

He heard yesterday that Misa Amane tried to commit suicide. She failed, it seems, and was taken to a hospital during the heat wave that had swept Japan on the first of July. She had woken up not long after, with the aid of drugs ensnaring her and pulling her into consciousness. He didn't care to think about the kind of questions she'd been subjected to by the Japanese task force, and he didn't care to imagine how she is feeling right now.

Near does not like Misa Amane. He has no time for her –she is flighty, overly cheery, and far, far too stupid. But it would take a fool not to see (and Near is no fool) how completely devoted to Light Yagami she was. Near was never devoted to Mello, and his death is causing little things inside him to curl up into ash, so...

He pities Amane, even if he does not like her.

The news of her attempted suicide (hanging, he hears – how grotesque, and he wonders if she knows how inelegant her corpse would have looked. He wonders if she'd have cared) reminds him of someone else. This someone else is a boy who was unconscious when he turned twenty, and who should have been dead by the time that birthday rolled around, but through a combination of sheer luck and maybe even a dash of divine intervention (and Near's intervention, at the very least, though he's anything but a God and he knows it all too well) is still lying, alive, fading, in a bed somewhere.

It's nothing to do with Mello, Near tells himself over and over. He called people in to drag Matt out of that place because if Yellow Box went wrong – and however well Near planned it, there had been nothing, absolutely nothing, stopping Yagami from just shooting them all – then at least there would be _someone_ there, someone _alive_ to carry it on. Someone who knew everything that had happened and would be the one person left perfectly poised to finish Kira off for good.

The fact that he was Mello's best friend is purely incidental.

He hasn't visited in a while, Near thinks. At least a couple of months. And it makes no sense to go and stand next to a motionless body, unresponsive and inanimate, but he does it anyway, every so often. And he talks, like some silly sentimental fool.

He isn't even sure what he says, really.

But it really has been a while.

He reaches forward and presses a button. Roger's voice crackles over the connection.

"Yes, L?"

"Watari. I would like to go to New York when this case is concluded."

A pause, and something rustling. Or it might just be static. "The hospital?"

"Yes," Near answers, with just the right pause – not too quick, not too long, so it looks perfectly natural and not at all as if his chest contracted at the question. He released the button before Roger can ask anything else, repositions the action figure he's been playing with, and lets out a breath.

And he goes back to the case at hand.

-

Mogi isn't the only one to remember that he shares – shared – his birthday with Deputy Director Yagami.

He declines a party, so instead, Aizawa offers to take him out for a meal. It's a small affair, with none of the 'old friends gathering' feel Aizawa's birthday had. As well as a celebration, there's a certain air of remembrance in the air, and regret. They raise a toast to Mogi, and behind that, there's a toast to Soichiro Yagami.

Mogi remembers what Light said in the warehouse, about people like the Deputy Director always losing out. He doesn't know if it's true. He doesn't think it is.

Rather, he can't think it is. Believing in that...

Believing in that would be like rolling over and saying the world had won. Not even that Kira had won – it was bigger than that. In the end, Kira had just been a boy in a suit with big ideas and a bigger brain. Gunfire had taken him down, whatever the coroners report might say, it was the gunfire that broke him. And even though Mogi would never admit it, and even though he feels passionately that violence is wrong, and even though he knows what it's doing to Matsuda –

He's never been more proud of the man than when he held that gun up to Light's face and saved Near's life.

He notices that Matsuda isn't drinking tonight. He's sitting quite quietly, poking his food around his plate, occasionally taking a modest mouthful. Mogi doesn't mind because tonight he's not paying, but he glances over at Aizawa to make sure that the guy footing the bill isn't getting antsy.

He isn't. He is, however, looking at Matsuda, with more concern than Mogi's ever seen him show for anyone but his daughters. Come to think of it, the idea of Aizawa looking at Matsuda as a son...it hadn't really crossed his mind before. But Matsuda had always seen the Deputy Director as a father figure, and now Aizawa had taken over the position...

No, it didn't fit, really. Aizawa's more of an older brother. Irritated by how flighty and irrational the younger sibling is, irked by his lack of responsibility, but still his passionate defender should anything rise to harm him, still one of the few things standing between the harsh realities of life and the innocence of youth.

But reality has bypassed Aizawa, and hit Matsuda straight between the eyes, and as near as Mogi can tell, he's still reeling.

Sometimes Mogi wonders if there's something wrong with him, that he's not more affected by what happened with Light. Maybe, he thinks, maybe it was Near – Near had almost conditioned him to accept it, so that by the time they walked into the warehouse, he'd have been more surprised if Light _hadn't _turned out to be Kira.

And he'd liked Light, sure, but he'd always been that little bit too quick to belittle Matsuda's intelligence, that little bit too sharp when correcting his father's errors.

The struggling and the good, and Light had no time for them. Mogi wasn't sure how far he could respect a man like that, and in the end, he'd been right.

Kira was just another criminal with bigger ideas than morals. And Mogi had done his job.

He had nothing to be ashamed about.

Across the table, Matsuda cuts a boiled potato in half and rubs it round the edge of his plate, picking up grains of salt. Aizawa looks tired, and overworked, and Ide sighs, like every life Light took is pressing down on his shoulders.

And Mogi's birthday wish is that they be okay.

-

The heat wave of the nineteenth puts the heat wave of the first to shame.

Lidner cranks the air conditioning up as high as it will go. She's sure it's broken, because the damn place is never as cool as it should be with what is theoretically a _hell of a lot_ of cold air pumping round it. She's stripped down to a tiny pair of shorts and a thin t-shirt, more casual than her usual night-wear preference but just about the coolest things she owns. Her hair is pulled up, uncharacteristically casual, into a messy bun. _Anything _to escape this heat.

A floorboard creaks. Rester emerged from the kitchen, unbuttoning his shirt.

"You don't mind, do you?" he asks, gesturing to his chest.

She shakes her head. She's seen Rester shirtless before and she's practical enough not to let a silly thing like modesty or a concept of politeness to make the man uncomfortable. He tosses the shirt, which looks stained with sweat, into the laundry basket, and offers her an iced coffee.

He disappears back into the kitchen to fix them up, and Lidner moves over to the window. Leaning on the sill, she looks down at the street below. Gloom is beginning to gather, flecks of darkness clustering around the outlines of buildings, and as she watches, the streams of traffic thin out. It's just stupidly hot, and everyone is rushing home to icy showers and loose clothing, shedding their suits until the next day.

She's working as a secretary. Never in her life did she think that she, Halle Bullook, would take a job filing papers and making phone calls, but she has. And maybe after a while she'll give it up.

She doesn't need to work, really. Near made sure that, in exchange for their help, they were more than covered financially for a good few years. Even with the annihilation of L's inheritance, Near's manic casework over the past few months had meant that footing the bills was not a problem.

But still, it helped to have something to do, and Lidner's finding that it's not so bad, really, the simple life. Doing something innocent and mundane, working in an office, just remembering what _life_ is like. Taking time out to sew, to cook, to take walks around a park and to wear dresses, when the mood takes her. Just to...live. Not chasing criminals down strangling, narrow alleyways, not examining evidence in order to cut off a chain of murders, not fearing every day that a faceless nameless killer is going to break off your existence with a flick of ink...

Something brushes against her arm and Rester leans over her to place the glass of ice and coffee in front of her. She smiles at him, and shifts over, so there's room for him at the window, too. It's silly standing this close in this kind of heat, she thinks, taking a sip of the coffee. But she doesn't move. She doesn't move because a part of her – the silly, irrational part that says it's okay to dehydrate – wants to stay standing by Rester.

It's not a particularly big window, and their arms knock together a little as they move. Lidner finds herself leaning forward, making excuses for their skin to brush, and she wonders what the hell she's playing at.

And then she realises.

She's attracted to him.

Rester, with his defined chest, Rester, who just _understands_ when for no reason at all she can't sleep, who knows why the demolition of a burnt-down church on the news made her lock herself in her room. Rester, who offers her iced coffee when it's hot and hot chocolate when it's cold.

And now she notices that he's looking at her, too.

The movement she makes is a cross between a tentative first step and the usual calm, self-assured deftness of her business attitude. It ends up being a little bit clumsy, but Rester doesn't mind, when her hand closes around a couple of his fingers. Twisting his hand slightly, he catches hers, and they stand like that, by the open window, drinking cold coffee, for quite a while. The sun sets, and finally, a vague breeze blows in from outside the city. They finished the coffees a while ago now, but neither of them wants to move.

And so, they don't.

-

Misa is not allowed to be on her own. They are watching her closely, the doctors, and the detectives who worked with Light, whenever they come round. They all look at her differently, talk to her as if she's made of glass, act as if she's going to shatter if they say something wrong.

Except Matsuda, who barely talks to her, and barely visits, but when he does, he just looks a mess and sounds miserable.

Misa would probably feel sorry for him, if she could feel anything at all.

Inside, she's dead. When she realised, when Matsuda kissed her, and the horrible, crushing realisation struck, she collapsed. The whole of her future, so carefully constructed, build around one, single constant, caved in, crumbling under the pressure of its own futility and falseness. And Misa had caved in with it.

She can't live in a world without Light, anymore than she could live in a world without the sun.

Trying to hang herself hadn't been an act of sorrow. The sorrow had come before then, great, echoing howls of grief, as she had curled up in her apartment, crying until her throat was sore and her voice was hoarse and she couldn't find enough water in her to cry any more. Sobs that had racked her body for hours and left her exhausted and devastated, empty and completely alone. It was like something inside her had been ripped out, leaving a gaping hole, bleeding and making her scream in agony.

And then, the pain had stopped. But the thing inside her was still gone, still pulled out, but now, there was just a hollowness. A strange gap where something important should have been, and Misa just though – why bother?

It hadn't been an act of sorrow. It had been an act of utilitarianism, because getting hit by a car put someone else in trouble and waiting for a natural death just cost too much and took too long.

But what she's going to do now –

She doesn't know.

Light is dead. Light is -

Gone.

She doesn't know.

-

The hospital is upmarket and very elite. Very private, too, and very expensive, and Near doesn't admit it but there's been a dual reason for working so many cases: to occupy his mind, and to afford this place. They're the best, and they're the most discreet, just what you need when your patient is, officially, dead and buried.

Matt's room is on the third floor. Near blends in perfectly here, with the sterile white walls and the obsessive cleanness of everything. He just fits. A doctor he recognises nods him in, and the door doesn't creak. A chair by the bedside is angled perfectly so that the visitor may look at the person in the bed, while being at a respectable distance.

Near doesn't care much for respect right now, so he pulls the chair up closer to the bed, climbs onto it, and looks at Matt.

He's skinny. Matt's always been skinny, but he looks skinnier now, all bones and bullet wounds. Near can make out the scars on his arms. They're mostly on his chest, though, and that's covered by a hospital gown, so he can't see that much.

He's glad.

The monitors are making the same sounds they made before. There's been a change in the medication they're feeding into him, he notes, and he reminds himself to tell the staff to inform him of such changes.

But it's not always that easy to contact him, so maybe they did try after all.

Near opens his mouth, without knowing what he's going to say. What comes out is –

"I miss Mello."

A pause. Then –

"You would too if you were awake."

Pulling a leg up, wrapping an arm round, studying the green and grey space ranger doll.

"The world seems duller. Less vibrant. Like everything is just ticking along now. Following its path. Nothing is mad and bad and dangerous."

Near knows he sounds like an idiot, and a whiny idiot at that, which is why he's glad Matt probably can't hear him. And even if he could hear him, he knows that Matt is the one person in the world who almost, sort of wouldn't judge him on this.

He'd just understand.

Near sits there for an hour or two, occasionally saying something. Eventually he peels himself off the chair, says his goodbyes, and his feet touch the floor. He turns, five padded footsteps take him to the door –

- and behind him, in the bed, Matt coughs.


	7. August

Disclaimer: Yeah I still don't own this stuff.

Note: I'm so very sorry it's been like...almost three months. I'm a horrible horrible person and now I reward you with a nasty little short chapter. I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry. But I REALLY wanted to update this and this is all I could get out. I hope you enjoy it anyway and it's not too disappointing an update. I promise to try harder and get a proper, long update up really soon. I'm sorryyyy, but thank you everyone who is still here for sticking with this. You guys rock my world hardcore style.

x

**August**

_I could take you places where you need a new man_

August is...

August is dry.

No rain flecks against the windows the day Matt awakens. The leaves have not started to fall quite yet, not on the trees near the hospital, so there is no colour in the air, no auburn on the breeze. There is only a gentle wind, soft and warm, dry grass, dusty soil, the whir of air conditioners and something like panic hanging in the tiny hospital room.

"Matt?" Near asks, slowly, hesitantly, unsticking his lips, his tongue sanding his mouth. "Can you hear me? Can you understand me?" He should get a doctor but no, no, he's having this bit to himself. Just this.

Matt looks at him. And oh but if he isn't even more of a mess now he's woken up. His hair is lank, which looks more fitting on a man in a coma than this boy, this terrified, skin-and-bones boy, who doesn't know where he is and why he's there.

His eyes are wide but he doesn't move. His pupils flicker back and forth, he swallows, the monitors are changing and Near really should call a doctor. Matt sits up, just a little, all aches and uncertainty, and he looks straight at Near.

"Why can't I see?" His voice is not Matt's voice. He sounds scared, he sounds like he wants to run away. He _sounds_ like he's putting on a brave face, and Matt never sounded like that. You couldn't tell when Matt was scared. Not Near, not Mello, not anyone. You only found out afterwards, when you were still shaking, and Matt turned to you and went, "Dude, I was shitting bricks back there".

"Matt," Near says again, a little more confident. Matt is awake, he can speak. This is good.

"Why can't I see half of the stuff? Where am I?"

"In hospital."

"Hospital where?"

"I can't tell you."

"Why can't you tell me?" Matt's voice rises a pitch. "Where am I? Why can't I see?"

"Matt...calm down. Please. I'm going to get a doctor."

Near slips down from the chair, feet soundless against the slick white floor. His hand is on the door handle when Matt's voice stops him.

"Who are you?"

-

Across the world, across seas and miles of cities and streets, in a different place amid a parade of nightmares, there is another hospital bed.

Misa Amane has been awake for sometime now. She sits, propped up in her bed, pale, porcelain skin against pale, china-white sheets, livid scars and strands of blonde splashing colour on the canvas.

Matsuda is outside the door of her room, talking to the doctor. She can see him through the small glass pane in the door, looking serious, nodding, his coat folded over his arm and Misa's discharge papers clutched in his hand. The doctor keeps talking.

Misa tilts her head. The movement – small, uninteresting – seems to strange and surreal. She would swear that she can feel the muscles working, hear the blood in her veins and the buzz of electricity in her nerves. She closes her eyes, eyelashes brushing her cheeks. The sheets are comfortable, and clean, and she doesn't care.

Then Matsuda is helping her up. Then they are at the door of the hospital. Then he is helping her into the passenger seat of his beat up little car, and she hasn't said a thing. This is how Misa's days go. Something happens. After a time she notices something else has happened. She cannot remember whatever has gone between, and she no longer wants to.

Matsuda's voice drifts towards her. She remembers that she likes Matsuda. He seemed very upset when she tried to hang herself. Misa does not feel much, but she feels a little bit of sorrow that she made Matsuda sad.

"...so Aizawa said that it would be best to have you stay with me. I thought maybe you could stay with Sachiko and Sayu but Aizawa says that would be a really bad idea. I don't know why..."

"...I hope they were nice to you in the hospital. I hope I've got everything you want at home. Anything you need just let me know, okay, Misa-Misa? I want you to be okay, okay? I want to look after you..."

"...we're here, Misa, do you want me to help you out?"

Misa blinks in the sunlight, as the car door opens. Air hits her face, temperate and balmy. It's pleasant – warming. Distantly she remembers that she liked this a lot, this kind of weather. She holds her hand out to Matsuda, and he pulls her out of the car, gently, carefully.

"Thank you, Matsu," she murmurs, as he steadies her to her feet. Her voice is cracked and hoarse. She has not used it much lately, but for crying.

Matsuda puts his arm around her waist, high enough that it could never be inappropriate. She steadies herself against him; her legs are too weak to carry her just by themselves. She leans her head against the part of his body that is neither shoulder or flesh.

It's warm. He's wearing a t-shirt, and the cloth somehow feels more soft, more human than all the beautifully laundered bed-sheets at the hospital. Vaguely she thinks she can hear his heartbeat. Unconsciously, she brings a hand to her breast. Her heart is beating, too. After everything, after all of everything, her heart is still beating.

She leans into him properly, slipping her arm around his back and pressing her face into his chest. She probably looks a sight with her hair unwashed and not a scrap of makeup. Matsuda has never minded, not since she has known him, and probably not ever.

He doesn't say anything, not when she hugs him, and not when she starts to cry. He just shifts his arms and wraps them round her tight, holding her against him while she sobs. She feels horrible – she feels empty and devastated and useless – but right now, right _here_, in Matsuda's arms, with his cheek pressed against her hair, she feels just the smallest bit less unhappy, just the tiniest bit more human.

-

Elsewhere and later beds are used for a different purpose.

It is one evening, as the last of the light slips away, and the heat is high and the air is dry, that Lidner – all pale hair and cool eyes and soft skin and linen – leans against Rester as some movie's hero swings into action. It's as the darkness rushes in completely, seeking out heat and jealously guarding it, swathed in sheets of cold and black, that Rester slips his arm around his shoulders, and kisses her.

Maybe it was the Kira case. Maybe it's because they're living together. Maybe it's a want for companionship or a lust for flesh. Maybe they were just meant to be.

Lidner doesn't care and Rester doesn't mind all that much either, when he presses her into the bed, hands running down her arms, over her body, undressing her. And there are some heats the night cannot claim.

In the morning, Lidner wakes before Rester. When they fell asleep his arm was over her, holding her, but they've moved in the night. Rester is on his bad and Lidner is curled up, small and slender, against him. She unfurls, stretches, feeling how unstrained her limbs are and how calm she is, and noticing how good Rester looks, naked and barely decent, with light creeping through a crack in the curtains and throwing his form into profile.

God, why hasn't this happened before...?

And it all makes sense now, though she's not put any reasons to it or thought it out or wondered if it'll last or what brought it on. There had been nothing special, nothing earth-shaking or world-altering, just the quiet, inevitable shift of her head onto his shoulder, as if it had been made to fit there. It had been something perfectly normal, perfectly usual, perfectly boring...

Halle Lidner makes tea this morning, not coffee, and feels happy.

-

Aizawa's got a lot of faults. He's stern, he's unfriendly, he's old-fashioned. He doesn't like messing about and he blows up far too often, and he sometimes lets his hair grow in silly ways.

But whatever you want to say about the man, Ide thinks, never let it be said that he can't bowl.

Aizawa hits his fifth strike of the evening just as Ide starts his second beer. He turns back to Ide with a smug smile, and takes his seat next to him on the bench.

"Bah," Ide comments, setting down his beer. Aizaw picks it up and takes a swig. "Hey! That's mine! And you're driving!"

"I'm also winning."

"You're just cheating!"

Aizawa frowns. "By...being good?"

"And not telling me, yes!" Ide fumes, getting up and selecting his ball. He casts a filthy look at Aizawa, and throws his ball straight into the gutter. "Oh, God _dammit_!"

Aizawa laughs as Ide drops into his seat next to him. "I'll tell you my secret if you want."

Ide perks up. "Seriously?"

"Yeah. Seriously. I'll tell you my secret if..." He casts around the room, and his eyes land on a woman with a long sweep of brown hair and a gaggle of friends, "...if you ask her out, in front of them."

Ide looks over. He weighs up the options. "And you'll really tell me how you do it?"

"I'll really tell you how I do it."

Ide hesitates. And then, he's up, striding across the hall, looking resolute. He taps the brunette on the shoulder. She turns to him and oh God, she's pretty, he's going to be humiliated, Aizawa is going to laugh at him for weeks, why did he agree to –

"Hey." _Why is she smiling?_ "Can I help you?"

"Doyouwanttogooutwithme?" he garbles, all at once.

The woman blinks, and he can almost see her picking apart his words. Her friends giggle, amused by this creepy old dude who's heavy-handedly hitting on the brunette.

"Um..." she says, frowning, still trying to work out what he said. "I don't think so...sorry...I'm sure you're nice and all..." She's turning red and her friends are giggling louder and Ide doesn't hang around.

"That was the worst moment of my life," he states, collapsing next to Aizawa and reaching for his beer.

Aizawa quirks an eyebrow. "Worse than Yellowbox?"

"Yes."

And they're making jokes about it now, so they know it'll be okay.

"Well, facing your fears is important," Aizawa tells him sagely.

Ide snorts. "Just tell me your secret, oh great master."

Aizawa shrugs. "Okay." He leans over, and whispers into Ide's ear, "I aim for the pins."

-

"There's nothing physically wrong with his brain." The doctor tacks up the scans they took of Matt's brain earlier that morning. "It's not physical trauma or damage from a bullet or any kind of injury."

"So it's dissociative?" Near asks, studying the scans intently, for any blip, any shadow, any sign of any problem.

"...We think so. We'll have a psychiatrist come up tomorrow and talk to him, to be sure. Can you tell me what he was doing when...?" The doctor trails off, leaving the question hanging.

"Facing men with guns," Near replied dryly.

The doctor clears his throat. "Yes, but –"

"No, I will not tell you what or why or how or when. He simply was. And you can know this; the situation was certainly traumatic enough to warrant a case of dissociative amnesia." Near gets to his feet. "I would like to know when you find out how severe it is. I expect it is probably generalised, as he did not remember who I was, and I have known him for some time. Please act with all haste."

The doctor does not seem pleased at being dictated a diagnosis to by a kid in pyjamas, but he stays quiet because the kid in pyjamas is getting a lot of money from somewhere to pay for the treatment.

"His eye is permanently damaged," the doctor continues, changing the topic.

"I gathered that," Near says, quite coldly, "when he informed me that he could not see 'half the stuff'."

"Yes, well..."

"If a bullet shattered a pair of goggles you were wearing, doctor, and the shards embedded themselves in your eye, would you expect a degree of permanent damage?"

"Well, yes..."

"When he regains his sensibilities," Near says, heading for the door, "I daresay he will be delighted to find that he now has a reason to wear an eyepatch."


	8. September

Disclaimer: I don't own Death Note and I am making no money off this. Lyrics line is Dustland Fairytale by the Killers.

Note: ...please don't hate me for never updating. I PROMISE Antivillain and this will be finished before October, at the latest. And I will try to move onwards with Louder Than Words, too. I have another BIG BIG BIG project in the works. And I mean big. Put it this way: Chapter One has three sections. Section One is written, and it has reached about 8000 words. There will be ten chapters. Information on my profile, it's Harry Potter. PM me to inquire about how you can get involved!

Anyway, this chapter. This is the EVERYBODY FEELS GOOD chapter. Enjoy. Oh, by the way. I've checked this for errors but I need to tell you it's been about twenty six hours since I even tried to sleep and in that time I've pumped out almost the entire first section of the HP story, among other things, so if this is a bit...everywhere, please forgive me. And thank you, everyone, for your patience with me.

Oh, yeah, one last thing. I can't even count how many pairing vibes I counted writing this. I don't know, some are more obvious than others. I'm tired. I'm hungry. This all seemed like a glorious idea when I was writing it. Antivillain will be next to be updated. I swear. It's long overdue.

x

**September**

-

_the change came in disguise of revelation, set his soul on fire_

_-_

September starts with the slow crinkling of leaves, the quiet crisping of the wind, the scant warmth of a fading sun and a bite of ice in the breeze that ruffles Sachiko Yagami's hair.

She is standing - very still, so still she might not be breathing, and it is only the whisper of the wind and the force of the planets and the trees and the world that presses air into her lungs, only a sigh that presses it out.

Her head is hung. Her hair is growing. She has kept it short for years - short and practical, it doesn't get caught, finger-paints and magnets could never get caught, and then she was aging and long hair was a vanity that made her look foolish and immature. She could never do that. She - _she_ was the wife of NPA Chief Yagami, and _she_ would bear her role with honour - with dignity, and with quiet respect.

She is no longer a wife. She is barely a mother. For more than thirty years Sachiko Yagami's existence has been woven so intricately with that of her family that it would have been impossible to extricate it - impossible to tell where Mother and Wife ended and Woman began. If she is honest, there is no such point. She threw away her role as Woman a long time ago, cast it off like garments soaked by rain and smelling of stale water. Sachiko Yagami is, was, and will always only ever, ever be the Mother and Wife.

But now…

Every day it happens a little more. Day by day, identity slips through her fingers, like so many grains of sand across a pearl-strewn beach, like the leaves flickering down from the branches of trees. Like the sun and the moon as they take their turns in the sky, as they fade away beneath the horizon…

The sky is closed; there is no rain. Inside the house, Sayu sits. Beautiful books are spread in front of her, an elegant dress is hung on the wardrobe just south of her wheelchair. Sachiko had so many nice clothes that she would wear when people from Soichiro's work came over. Sayu stares at a white-washed wall and in her head figures of fire and freedom and the impossible, inescapable pull of oblivion dance with skirts of leather and rosaries…

Drops of water fall to the ground at Sachiko's feet. The breeze ruffles her hair, blows it across her eyes. The sky is still closed.

-

The dryness that stretched through August and reached out its thin, barren tendrils into September cannot - and does not - last. There is a thunderstorm, the likes of which sends water flooding through the street and turns the midday dark with clouds and sleeting rain. Lightning forks through the sky and thunder rolls, and the heavens roar and toss and turn and somewhere inside his head, Matt is losing what little of himself he has been told he has left.

Matt is what they have told him his name is. He knows that isn't right. But he also knows that Matt _is_ what they think his name is - truly, and honestly. He cannot remember his name. He thinks it starts with M like Matt does. He thinks it might be Mello. He thinks this because he remembers the name Mello, and he remembers it being important and something he must never, ever let go and never, ever, _ever_ forget…so maybe it is his name. Because he is sure that Matt is not his name.

The hospital room was very clean and white when he woke up. He can still remember waking up. He thought he might forget, maybe, but he didn't. He remembers the vagueness of shapes, and darkness, but darkness like he was swimming in the darkness, like he was inside it and still himself, but a _part_ of it and a part of everything….and then a swooping, dropping sensation like waking from a dream and then he could see half the room and this weird little kid who dressed all in white and looked almost translucent, who told him he would get a doctor.

The hospital room is still very clean. But Matt had started noticing the other colours here - some blue edging the floor, a hem of pink and the edge of his blankets. And they are bringing more colours every day - the translucent boy, and the young, handsome man with dark hair who accompanies him sometimes. They tell him they are _his_ things - strange shaped plastic contraptions that Matt wants nothing more than to run his hands all over and hold for hours, without really knowing why, and striped jerseys, that he knows, somewhere in his mind, are his, but he knows somewhere else that he doesn't want to see them. When he looks at them all he can think of is red, and holes, and the translucent boy told him he was shot, and he thinks that he was probably wearing a striped shirt, and that his name was Mello.

There is sound inside the hospital but Matt cannot hear it. All he can hear is the deafening, hammering sound of rain against sheet glass, the gathering rumbles of thunder about the cloud-tops, the drone of his monitors that, by now, are as familiar to him as his own breathing.

There is a sudden upsurge in the rain and it pounds against the window of his hospital room, screeching to be let it, roaring, howling, beating its way in a violent, jubilant march, screaming and singing and _laughing_ - and then Matt remembers a thunderstorm where he dragged the translucent boy away from a jigsaw puzzle and made him run through the rain with him, in the middle of a thunderstorm, with lightning blazing to earth…. but they were safe because they had brought lightning _with_ them, bolder and hotter than any bolt from the heavens, louder and coarser than any strike of thunder - and the storm, oh it had raged and raged and _raged_ and they had screamed at it, told it to DO ITS WORST because they were not afraid.

And that thunderstorm had been when the translucent boy had arrived at the orphanage, and he was so quiet and shellshocked and withdrawn and it had made Matt's heart bleed to see him sat there, alone, and so he had run with him in the thunderstorm and they had been soaked through to the bone, and their arms and legs and buttocks stayed cold for hours and hours later. They all caught old and Roger pretended to be so angry but the translucent boy was laughing, laughing and flicking rain from his hair and he hadn't even smiled since they had brought him there -

Matt remembers that he was brought up in orphanage with the translucent boy and with someone else, but he doesn't really remember who that was. The handsome man with dark hair who Matt thinks might have been called Stephen told him to call if he remembered _anything_, so he tells the doctors and calls the translucent boy. He babbles for eighteen minutes about thunderstorms and jigsaw puzzles and orphanages and then the boy tells him he will visit him soon, and 'goodbye Matt'.

Matt plucks up the courage and tells him he thinks his name is Mello. The boy is very quiet for a while and then he just says 'goodbye Matt', and hangs up.

But Matt doesn't care because he has names now - he has Matt and Mello and Roger and Stephen, and the rain is still pouring, still throwing itself against his window without avail. He gets the nurse to open the window, just for a few minutes, and for a long time afterwards he can feel the freshness of the storm on his face, and the flecks of rain in his hair, and he is _happy_.

-

Misa has refused to let Matusda go.

Ide hazarded a guess, at the beginning, that she had a crush on him, but they all knew that wasn't the case, and Matsuda laughed and reminded Ide that he'd never had a great romance. It was almost like life was normal.

But it is a foolish thought to think that life will ever be normal for any of them again. Normal is gone, and what they must do now is make do with what they have…and make it into something better.

Misa will not allow herself to be moved out of Matsuda's apartment. Matsuda suggested that if she wanted to stay with him so much, they could find somewhere bigger, but Misa refused to leave _that_ apartment. She cannot explain why. They have asked her, and she was happy to try to tell them. She struggled to find words but she tied herself in knots, and began to get worked up, and in the end it was only Matsuda's hand on her shoulder and head resting against hers that slowed her breathing.

On some days, Misa is the Misa she was before. Mogi mentions that it is an encouraging sign that these days are happening more and more. It could be recovery, some doctors say. She's not coping with the pain, some other doctors say. She need to face it. To those doctors, Aizawa would square up to them and tell them, eye to eye, that Misa has faced up to enough pain.

None of the doctors ever repeat that advice.

When Matsuda is at work, Misa stays at home. She will cook, on the good days, and she will clean, and on the bad days she will arrange the cushions on his couch over and over, and when he comes in, bound up to him calling him Light, and then dissolve into tears. But the bad days are getting less and less, and all of them pray that it's a sign of recovery.

"Why do you think she has latched onto you, then?" Ide asks Matsuda, one night when Misa has fallen asleep and Ide has come around for a few beers.

Matsuda stares at the television set they turned off twenty minutes ago. "I don't know," he says quietly, and it isn't avoidance or dismissal. It is raw uncertainty, gilded with a touch of awe that Ide knows means Matsuda has fallen deeply, irrevocably in love with the broken angel asleep on his bed.

He does not tell Matsuda this. Instead, he says, "She's good for you." His voice is low, and quiet, and barely audible above the invisible hum of electricity in wires, and the faint fizzing of beer.

Matsuda takes a chug of his beer; another sound to add to the quiet cacophony rising to its crescendo just under the surface.

"I think I know what you mean. She's…Ide, I've never known anyone like her, you know? I mean, before she was…well. But now…now that Light is gone…" Matsuda looks down, frowns. Light is still a touchy subject for him. Matsuda still sees the blood on his own hands, and Matsuda still sometimes has nightmares that he can't shake off when he wakes.

"I can't imagine what it must be like," Ide says, before he realises he's speaking his thoughts aloud.

"For her to lose Light?"

"No." Ide shakes his head. This is a dangerous topic - Light Yagami is now and always has been a dangerous topic. But he ploughs ahead, because he has had a few beers and the closeness to Matsuda is almost as intoxicating, and he's always been a little more loose-lipped around this guy than he should be. "For you. To be around her. Surely - surely Misa is just one giant reminder of Light, right? And I know what it does to you - to think about him -" Ide clumsily squeezes his shoulder, and Matsuda hangs his head and looks so heartbroken that for a moment Ide forgets every thought in his head except that somehow, he has to make this man better.

When he finds his thoughts, and his tongue, and his words, he continues. "It must be very hard."

He doesn't just mean being reminded of Light. He means being reminded of what Light had, and who he - in his own mind - took Light away from.

Matsuda's features are soft in the half-light. He wears a worn-down t-shirt and it gathers round his shoulders and bunches up a little. He has a smattering of stubble across his boyish chin that is comical and heart-wrenching at the same time, and he is in love with Misa Amane.

"Being around her every day must break your heart," Ide says very quietly. He can't quite stop the feeling from leaking into his voice. But he doesn't judge, he doesn't question.

Matsuda turns tired eyes up to him. This man, Ide thinks, this man has seen too much. He has seen lifetimes of this world. He's seen the same things as me and as any of us, but he's seen so much _more_ because of who he is. Who he was.

Because Touta Matsuda would never have been able to look at Light Yagami and see a murderous traitor, a half-formed boy-man convinced he had the right to play God. Touta Matsuda could only ever see the other half of his own reflection - he could only see the Light he once told Ide, in the dark of their hotel room, that he thought of as a brother, the Light who was everything Matsuda wasn't, who he shaped and moulded his life around.

Touta Matsuda could never see Light Yagami as Kira. He can only see him as the boy he shot and the fiance he forced him to leave behind.

On nights like this Ide hates Light more than ever. And it's not because Light betrayed them, or because Light incited Matsuda to shoot him and gave the man nightmares, or because he used Misa or killed so many people. On nights like this, he hates Light with a bubbling, venomous hatred - because Light had called out to Matsuda to help him, called out to Matsuda as his kindred, even in the stark face of his putrescence and treachery to all they had worked for.

And he hates him because - because Light called out to Matsuda, because he asked Matsuda to _save_ him, Matsuda is never going to stop thinking he could.

The night wears on, and Ide finds himself sleeping on Matsuda's couch again. Too many beers, he knows, but he kind of likes falling asleep on a lumpy sofa that sort of smells of fried food mixed with Matsuda's aftershave. In the morning Misa wakes him with a plate of toast and eggs and bacon, and he's a little groggy from the alcohol until he sees Matsuda slouching in wearing boxer shorts and the same ratty t-shirt, and realises how much better off he is this morning. Misa gives Matsuda a little hug this morning, and Ide's stomach twists, and he tells himself it's because he's glad that today is going to be a good day.

And it is.

-

Elsewhere Halle Bullook is thinking about changing her name. She used to like Bullook - she used to like the comparison to a bull. The huge, ungainly creature, with all of its power and stubborness and fighting spirit - bound up in her, slender and blonde and God damn, she knew she was deadly and beautiful. She had loved her name, the way it fit and didn't fit all at once.

Now, Bullook doesn't fit at all. The only thing that fits now is Lidner. Even though she's intimate with him now - with _Anthony Carter_, his name feels strange even in her mind - all they ever are to each other is Lidner and Rester. It doesn't matter when or how - passing tins of soup to each other in a supermarket for inspection, checking how many scoops of icecream on his pancakes the night she made them as a treat, when they are bound together with sheets and sweat and desperation and something that is rapidly, terrifyingly approaching love - they can never be anything else. They experimented with Anthony and Halle. It only works rarely. Carter and Bullook have been exiled forever, to the bone yards of their pasts.

Vaguely, Lidner remembers her life before the Kira case. She seems to remember it was quite a good life. She certainly does seem to remember 'having it all'.

But nothing has been the same since then. Since Death Gods and Death Notes and Near and above all else Mello - how could life ever have been the same?

Lidner is not sure how the days pass. They seem to do very little. They work small jobs, they live small lives. They live them together. She can't understand - she really just cannot understand - why she feels so fully, completely, and inexplicably happy.

Halle Bullook always burned with ambition and drive. When she became Halle Lidner all the ambition had to burn itself up, because this was the peak - after this, no matter how many bigger cases came along, nothing would be the same. Not ever. No job would matter. She was left with drive - drive to do her best, to succeed, to defeat…

Mello's drive had been exactly the same. He had no ambition. Lidner could see, from the moment she met him, from the moment they spoke, that he would never enjoy being L. He was never made to be L. All he is made for, his entire purpose, encoded in every cell and woven through his leather and wooden beads, is one thing - Beat Near. If Near lay defeated, Mello would have no purpose.

And with Kira defeated, neither did Halle Lidner. Only Halle Bullook had a future…and there was no going back to that.

This small life, she thinks, this small life of vegetable shopping and sewing and working as a secretary, this is a good life, because it is mine. Halle Lidner, in the only way she can continue to exist.

And despite it all, despite the minutiae and Rester's morning breath and how boring game shows are - Halle Lidner is happy, because she still exists.

-

Rester finds her asleep on the couch when he comes on. A game show that he knows for a fact she hates is playing. The TV guide is on the floor, inches away from where her hand has drooped over the side. Apparently there was quite a good movie on before this, one he'd been meaning to watch, but work had detained him. He checks the TV. She's taped it for him.

He carried her to bed, gently. She stirs, but he shushes her back to sleep. Her eyes open, and every time he sees them they shock him - like electricity, a sudden jolt straight down his spine. They are clear and they are blue and sometimes when she opens them all of a sudden and he isn't prepared, he will find her - _her_, this wonderful thing of ice and steel and carefully buried tenderness - looking at him as if he is the only thing in the world. And he is just big and a little bit too strong, and good at his job as a bodyguard but a bit flat at everything else.

He's crazy about Lidner though. He always has been. But there's professionalism, when there's a job to be done. And he was professional. But now he doesn't have to be - and she is still here, still warm next to him, and cool to his touch at the same time. She is beautiful, and Rester admits, in the silence and stillness of the night, quietly and in a wish-upon-a-star, that he loves her. He loves her, and he vows that he will move mountains if it keeps her safe, if it keeps her happy. Because if there's one thing he can do it is be strong and tough and unfailing, and he will be there for her, everyday, from now on.

Always.

-

Sooner or later it was always going to be Gevanni's birthday. It's the first one he's had to himself in a while, and he finds himself hounding Near for extra things to do. Near looks at him oddly for a moment because he knows it is his birthday - because Near knows everything - and then comes straight out and asks him. Because on top of knowing everything, Near has no tact and no patience.

He had a whole answer prepared but he doesn't remember it. He casts around for a moments, and lands on the truth. "A birthday is too much a part of my life to be spent away from all of this."

And all of this is the remnants of the SPK - emails from Rester and Lidner, Near's tasks, and a red haired boy in a hospital bed who calls him Stephen and thinks his name is Mello.

How did he get here - ?

Nah. That's a stupid question, Gevanni knows. The real question is how did he kid himself into thinking he could avoid this - kid himself into thinking he could turn his back on this life.

No one out there knows about Kira. No one knows about Death Notes or Near or any of it. And Gevanni has found that standing in that world, surrounded by people who know nothing of the fights that have raged beneath their feet, is impossible to bear.

On his birthday, he takes Near to see Matt. Matt has had some kind of revelation during the thunderstorm a week or so earlier, and Near is determined to hear every memory this boy can drudge up. Despite himself, Gevanni is a little fascinated by Matt, too. By all rights, he should be dead and in the ground, like Mello. No, not like Mello - less burnt, more peppered with bullets.

Gevanni can't imagine dying like that.

More than that, he can't imagine dying like that - and then coming _back_. Because Matt has told him about it, the waking, the rush of air feeling like water sinking into his lungs, the blur or colour and blackness…

Gevanni does not envy Matt. Nor does he blame his brain for running away the way he has. If Matt had any common sense left, he wouldn't be looking for his old memories. He'd believe Gevanni when he told him he was better of without them, and start forming new ones.

But that's a fallacy, because Matt can't have any common sense left because he didn't have any to begin with. He was one of the Wammy kids, and for all their brains and brilliance and bizarreness, they have no common sense whatsoever - and remarkably little sense of self-preservation.

So Matt chases his memories, and Gevanni is there to run alongside him.

When they arrive at the hospital, Matt is sitting up in bed. He is thin, and pale, and there is a white eye bandage covering half his head. He is turning a handheld video game console over and over, touching ever surface, feeling the crevices, staring at the screen and pressing the buttons. He isn't just button-mashing though, he's actually _playing_ - playing a game that isn't there in a machine that isn't turned on. Memories replaying themselves. Over and over.

Near sits by his bed. Matt saves his game and looks up at Near as if seeing him for the first time.

"Near," he says, and his throat sounds dry. Automatically, Gevanni rises to fetch some water. He has been around Near for long enough to sense the shut shift in the atmosphere, to notice how he has gathered three extra strands into the section he is twirling. It is a sign that Near is elated, and deliriously happy.

"You remember me," he answers, as calm and cool as ever.

"I remember you got cold when we ran in the rain, but you loved it, and you flicked the rain from your hair -" Matt reaches out and flicks Near's curls to demonstrate. Near's eyes remain fixed on the boy in the bed.

"I remember that too." Near's voice is quiet. Gevanni quietly pours a glass of water and sets it in front of Matt. He moves to stand by the door.

"Is my name Mello?" Matt asks, suddenly.

Near shakes his head. "No. Mello was someone else."

"Who? Tell me about him."

"I can't."

"Why not?" Matt's voice was petulant, and frustrated.

"It will affect your recovery."

"Yes!" Matt sounds exasperated. "Because he's important! Whoever he is - me, someone else - he's important!"

For a moment, for a fleeting moment, Gevanni is sure he just saw Near look sad. But then the moment is gone, and his face is blank again.

"In time, Matt."

"Matt isn't my name!" The frustration is back, and Gevanni can sense it - he knows something, knows it in his bones and blood, but the memory - the evidence - is just out of reach.

"What is your name?" Near asks, all peaceful ponds and tranquil forests.

"I don't know! Tell me."

"I don't know. Matt is the name they gave you at the orphanage. It's the only one I know you by."

"Find my other name. My real name." He sounds petulant again.

"I don't know how."

"Find a way!" Matt exclaims, spreading his arms, and he really does look thin and pale and weak. "You're the smart one!"

"I am. And which one are you?" Near watches him carefully.

"The charming one," he answers, without missing a beat, and without a trace of humour. It's fact, Gevanni senses. Near was the smart one, Matt was the charming one…

"Find my name," Matt appeals again, quietly and in earnest, as Gevanni is holding the door open.

"I will try."

They are seconds closer to being gone entirely when Matt speaks again.

"Mello was the brave one."

This time, Near really does have an expression. A look of sorrow is mingle with the ghost of a smile, and the curious mix splashes onto his cool features and is gone.

All he says is, "That is correct. Mello was the brave one."

And by then, the door has swung shut behind them, and they have gone.


	9. October

Disclaimer: I don't own Death Note or a conscience.

Note: Ugh...waiting times increased again. Blame reality. But don't worry, reality has taken its vicious little revenge in a myriad of exciting ways. The good news is while my life falls to pieces I take solace in writing, so hopefully that will translate to fanfiction.

Points to note: some mild bad language. Shuichi is Aizawa's first name for those who didn't know or had better things to do than remember. Here the plot is overblown, emotion is over the top and I ramble. But you know what, I'm pleased with parts of it. My favourite part is Eriko's section. Above all else. Please enjoy.

x

**October**

_tremble for yourself my man you know that you have seen this all before_

For Rester, October is ushered in with a bout of uncontrollable vomiting into the toilet while Lidner leans in the doorway, completely unperturbed and completely beautiful. He notices that, even now. Damn, he can't _stop _noticing it. This woman, the things she does to him –

Oh, good God. Here comes another one.

He leans back over the toilet and barely has time to utter a groan.

Lidner teases him for the rest of the night, after he's done and his stomach has finally settled. Can't handle his ale, she teases him, and he smiles weakly because the thought of more alcohol really _does_ threaten to turn his stomach over.

Even if that _wasn't_ what caused it and even if Rester _knows_ that and even if he's _sure_ he didn't have enough red wine for it to be quite that colour.

He doesn't tell Lidner about the blood. For the first time since he's known her, she seems relaxed. But he loves this woman, and he knows what she's like, and he knows that if he gives her the chance she's going to latch on to the littlest abnormality and turn it into some mystery to solve.

And God help him, he can't get enough of _that_ part of her, either.

His stomach is still churning but he closes his eyes and grits his eyes and tries not to think about how young his dad died and how this was how it had started for him.

-

There is something about this that is different, Gevanni realises, as the grey of clouds furls and unfurls around the last shocks of summer blue draining out of the sky. There is something about this, this job, that is different to what it used to be.

It isn't just the closing of the Kira case or the absence of his comrades. No, those things are too obvious. The obvious things leave a different taste in your mouth, a different feel in the air. And Gevanni has felt that change, he has tasted it. The obvious things change the world. They shake it from its very foundations up and bring ceilings crashing in and windows bursting into glistening, glittering shards of glass. The obvious things can't be escaped, can't be avoided, they change _everything_, and there is never, ever any going back.

But this, this is just a niggling _difference_, a subtle shift of the breeze, some sense of unrightness, so quiet it can't even quite manage to be _wrong_.

"Gevanni." Near's voice crackles across the speakers, undistorted. He's safe on the internal line, but sometimes he uses the voice changer anyway.

Old habits, Gevanni thinks.

And then he thinks that despite his mind, despite his brilliance, despite the world he's come from and the world he is living in and the world he is making for himself, Near is barely nineteen and kids who are nineteen should not have seen the kind of things that breed defence mechanisms in so deep there's no escaping.

But he has. And he's done more than see those kinds of things. He's stood before them, when all the other pieces had toppled from the board, he had been the last best chance, and he had sunk his hands into the mire and pulled out the answer.

Near was the reason there was going to be any security in this world at all. If Gevanni is honest with himself, that's probably why he came back, more than anything.

It's what Halle always said about Mello. Once you've touched against something that like – _one of these kids_ – you're never going to be the same, and you're never going to want to turn away.

He answers Near with a swift, "yes?"

"I would appreciate it if you placed that phonecall now."

"Of course."

The speakers crackle once more and fall silent, and now, Gevanni picks up the phone.

It's not a number he knows at all, so it takes a while to dial, checking constantly between the screen and the number pad. Eventually, it begins to ring, and after the second jangle, there is a click, and a heavy voice says, "_Hai?_"

"Is this the residence of Kanzo Mogi?" Gevanni asks, his Japanese, as always, flawless but heavily American.

"Speaking," the heavy voice says, and Gevanni can hear the rustling as Mogi shifts the phone to his other ear. "Who is this?"

"This is Stephen Lo – Gevanni, from the SPK." He is still sometimes never quite sure who he is supposed to be these days.

"Oh." Mogi's tone is not curious, not surprised, and this man has always intimidated Gevanni more than a little, because at least Rester, big as he was, had _expressions_.

He clears his throat, and says, "I'm calling with a message from Near."

There is a static silence across the line, and then, the heavy tones unaffected by emotion or inflection, "Please go on."

-

The curl of the first fog of October comes in and feels something like suffocation. It feels something like an invisible, ungraspable hand tracing ice cool patterns on your throat, something like slick beads of sweat slipping cold down your spine, something like the last shudder before sleep.

Or, perhaps, it is different. Perhaps it is the first shudder upon waking, the first time that day you realise the feeling of _cold_, or perhaps it is the first time you ever feel a kind of pain so sharp, so deep, so unavoidably _altering_, and it hits you so deeply and so keenly and so cruelly that you forget even how to cry out.

Sayu Yagami's eyes open one morning, and she is different. She has taken her first shuddery, awful breath of the day's cold, felt the fog come curling in through the window and looked out, and out, and out, as if somewhere in the blurriness and white she can see flashes of smoke and lightning, of things that used to be normal but never were for her.

Sayu Yagami's chest rises and falls in the October coolness, and her eyelids flutter closed. Her mind is filling and emptying and filling again, and she can't can't _can't_ keep all these thoughts at once, all these memories. This, this is why she shut down. Because of this. Because of these thoughts.

But now quietly they are coming back. Her mind is ready, even if Sayu is not, to wake back up, and it is booting and rebooting itself until she can catch up.

The dawn's light is pale and a dog barks somewhere down the street and it reminds Sayu of the laugh of a boy who was everything inexplicable and everything harsh and hard-edged, like the splinters of charcoal on the line of a portrait.

She thinks about crying but what she is feeling, this sudden devastation, this sudden realisation that _the world is different now_ and she has missed out on _everything_ is deeper than that, deeper than tears, deeper than misery.

This is her life, changing, slipping out of the control she had crafted in silence and stillness. This is reality finally catching up to her and _dragging_ her out of her shell, forcing her into the brightness of day, leaving her squinting and unsheltered.

There is no protection now, and her chest starts to heave. She knows she is hyperventilating and thinks vaguely of the panic attacks she used to have as a kid, and Sachiko is on her in seconds, asthma pump in hand, calming her, bringing her water...

And then, in her mother's arms, feeling frail and tired and _human_, she finally does cry. She cries for her father, and for her brother, and secretly, she cries for Mello.

When she has calmed, and stopped, and quieted, she mumbles something about wanting a cup of tea. And Sachiko's breath catches, because _Sayu is talking_ but she doesn't comment, just says she'll get it, and bustles from the room. Sayu can hear her choked-back sob of relief.

It has been a very long time, she thinks.

Her throat feels strange and raw. Her hands feel overly large and clumsy. Everything about her feels strange and new, as if she has just slipped into this body by accident and now has to find ways of working it about.

She draws a breath that doesn't shake and doesn't quaver.

The pain inside her is sharp and cruel. She thinks of all the men lost to that war, and she thinks of Misa, left alone like her. She thinks of loneliness and lightning and fire and, inexplicably, a strange black notebook she'd seen in Light's bag once, just before all the Kira business started.

She thinks of silence and desperation and floating in her own head, and she thinks of the sun.

And after all and all of these many hours...

It's time to wake up.

-

The room is silent and still and semi-dark. The curtains turn translucent in the morning light, and a shaft of light cascades through a shift between the material and the glass, casting a slender beam across the bed.

Matsuda has been awake for nearly three hours now. He couldn't get back to sleep. He couldn't get comfortable, no matter what, and was too afraid to toss or turn or pace, with Misa's slender body curled next to him, her eyes closed, her chest rising and falling rhythmically. He has spent these three hours in an awkward, exhausted limbo, worries and demons chasing each other in and out of his mind. He is tired in ways he can't explain, ways he has felt so keenly and so cruelly since that day in January. Days and weeks have melded into months and still he is here, lying awake in the half light, waiting for the day to realise itself, thinking of shooting Light Yagami.

Only things are a little bit different these days, because Light's _fiancée_ is lying here next to him, one little hand balled over his chest, her head tucked against his side. Protective, possessive – dependent. That's what Ide says it is. Dependence. She needs someone to rely on, to hold onto, to shape herself around, and Matsuda, he just so happens to be the guy.

It kind of makes him happy, really, to know that Misa Misa can rely on him. Sort of makes him feel like, well, maybe he's not a total failure, and maybe it _is_ a good thing he didn't die like Light that day in Yellowbox, because at least he can be here for her.

It kind of kills him a bit, because Misa, she's treating him like a toy, like a teddy bear, like a security blanket, and he's been in love with this girl since the day she bounced into his life. And little girls love their teddy bears just until they grow up.

One day, one day soon, Misa's going to be better again. She's going to have her head together and she's going to _hurt_ but she's going to be okay. And then, she'll have grown up at last.

And Matsuda will be left back here on the bed, propped against the pillows, watching the door.

The alarm goes off, a shrill beeping completely at odds with the tired serenity of this room. He groans, and feels Misa tense and untense beside him, waking up. She lets out a sigh. She shifts her head and strands of gold trail themselves across his t-shirt and somewhere deep in himself he forgets how to breathe.

"I love you," he has said, half a whisper, before he can stop himself. The words have slipped from him like a breath, like something natural, like something inevitable, and the room is so still and golden and the alarm clock almost makes him laugh, it's such a call back to reality.

"Mm?" Misa is still mostly asleep, but she brings her hand away from her chest to rub at her eyes. Matsuda feels the little weight leave him and immediately feels different, feels bare.

"It's time to get up," he says, more clearly, a furious blush rising to his cheeks. _She didn't hear_, he tells himself. _She didn't hear_. He reaches across and shuts off the alarm.

"M'kay," Misa mumbles, rolling onto her back. She is so very, very _small_ and Matsuda always feels so clumsy anyway – being around her, it's like he's going to break her. And she's so fragile now, so delicate these days, always on the edge of becoming glass. "What're we doing today?"

"I've gotta work," he tells her, "but I get off at lunchtime so I thought I'd take you shopping, Misa Misa." He smiles down, wide, and almost genuine, knowing she has learnt how to feel it in the shift of him, in the change of his voice.

Still close-eyed, she smiles back. "I'd like that, Matsu." Then she yawns, stretches, all cream skin and angel feathers caught up _somehow_ between his sheets, and then she murmurs, curling back over, "love you too, Matsu."

He thinks his brain probably stops him from hearing that before he's left the room. It's weird, because he knows she's said it, but he's reacting as if it's normal, as if she'd just said 'good morning'.

"I'll wake you up again before I leave," he says, and it's automatic, it's what he says every day she gets scared and crawls into his bed and wakes up there next morning.

He dare not breathe again until he's under the shower, and then, when he sucks in a gasp of hot air and moisture, and coughs around too much water, he doesn't know what to think.

And he knows the whole rest of his day is going to be running over this in his head.

-

"Pay attention, Matsuda, we're only asking you to give us half your day." Aizawa scowls at him over the top of his file, before tapping it towards the man.

Matsuda groans, passes a hand over his face. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I forgot to check it was all printed off. I'll go get the last five sheets."

He's at the door when Aizawa clears his throat. Matsuda turns back. "And some sugar for my coffee," he adds pointedly.

Matsuda returns his look blankly. "Did I not put any in?"

"No."

"Oh. I'll be right back!"

Aizawa puts his head into his hands as the door closes. He has _never_ known what to do with Matsuda.

"Now, now, the lack of sugar can't be destroying you that much."

He looks up and sees Ide grinning at him wryly and offering a few packets to him. He snatches them grumpily and dumps them into his coffee. "You knew he'd forget."

"Misa told him she loves him this morning."

Aizawa looks up, raises an eyebrow, and then goes back to his coffee. It is vastly more interesting.

But Ide is his friend and has been longer than he's known Eriko, so he asks, "And how does that make you feel?"

"Huh?"

He looks up properly this time, once he's contented himself that the sugar is dissolved. He takes a pensive sip of his coffee and then says again, "And how does that make you feel? That she loves him?"

Ide seems a little confused, a little flustered. "I don't know if she means it. She might mean a different kind of love. In that case I hope he doesn't set himself by it, 'cause I don't want to see the idiot hurt again so soon –"

"That's not what I meant," Aizawa says, taking another sip of coffee and _knowing_, just knowing, that there are better places to do this. Better times to do this. Better _ways_ to do it. But Ide has been skirting round this thing, making up stories, fuzzing up his own mind, for long enough now.

"I – what did you mean, then?" His cheeks are reddening a bit, and he looks uncomfortable.

"You know what I mean," he tells him, voice gentle but pressing.

Ide opens his mouth for a denial, for an avoidance, but Aizawa doesn't take his gaze away from Ide's and after a few seconds, the other man's shoulders slump.

"Yeah. I know what you mean."

And then, "It makes me feel like shit."

-

Eriko can tell what kind of day it has been by the way Shuichi puts down his briefcase when he comes through the door.

If he throws it onto the armchair by the TV, it has been an exceptional day, and he is on top of the world. These days don't happen so much anymore.

If he throws it onto the couch, she will avoid him until he has calmed down and doesn't want to shoot things still.

If he places it neatly by the door, it was an ordinary, run-of-the-mill day, and this is usually where the briefcase stays, these days, because he is making more and more time for them every day.

But when he comes into the kitchen that day, still holding it, she knows something is wrong.

"Come and sit down," she says. She wraps one arm around him and reaches to take his briefcase. His hold on it is tight, like a lifeline. Gently, she unfolds his fingers, sets it on the counter, leads him to the living room.

"Sit down," she tells him again, and perches herself on the arm of his chair, running her fingers through his soft hair. "Talk to me. When you're ready."

He looks up at her then, meeting her eyes, and there is such a wealth of gratitude and adoration and simple _love_ in his eyes that for a moment, her heart stops beating and just stands still to drink him in.

She is never going to stop loving this man.

"Ide," he says, after a few minutes. Then, "Matsuda."

"Oh," she says, because he has long ago stopped having any kind of secrets from her, and she knows that Kira is dead, and that he was Soichiro Yagami's boy, and that Hideki Ide hasn't liked women since he was twenty three.

"Amane," he says, then.

"Oh?" Now she's curious. She wants to know how the girl fits into this. Because at the end of the day, she _likes_ Ide, and she thinks Matsuda is adorably sweet and the only type of man she has ever met that she'd be happy with Yuki dating (when she is old enough, of course, and 'enough' to her husband will probably be around thirty five). And she knows how this has been for Matsuda, knows how he's come tumbling out of the fire and kept running, through drink and smokes and blinding, blinding pain, and if he and Ide can help each other, then –

"It's not gonna amount to anything," Shuichi says, heavily. "Just...those two. Sometimes it's like kids, taking care of them."

He gripes and he moans and doesn't care at all. Eriko smiles fondly and runs a finger down the side of his face. He catches her hand, and kisses it.

"Invite them round for dinner sometime," Eriko says. Shuichi looks up at her and she offers him her most angelic smile. "I'll look after it."

He studies her for a moment, looking half worried, and then seems to surrender and smiles. "If anyone could," he says, and kisses her hand again.

There is a commotion from the front door, and then, "I'm home! Is Daddy back?"

Eriko gets to her feet as Yuki comes bounding in and tumbles onto Shuichi's lap. She's getting too old to fit onto it right but she's a daddy's girl and always will be. She watches them, smiling, then laughing as Yuki starts ranting about a boy at school who tried to cheat on a test.

She can see the fierce pride in Shuichi's eyes as he looks at her, the depth of wonder that she can be so righteous so young, and still so pure.

He has seen so much corruption, Eriko thinks sadly, but he is here. He is here now, with me, with our little girl, and that is all that matters.

Kira has changed a lot of things. Kira has ruined a lot of people. But from the beginning, from the very first day Shuichi started on this case, Eriko had promised herself that it would not ruin _her._

And here they are, together, and whole.

She knows the case is far from truly over. She knows that there has been devastation caused that will not be fixed in a matter of months. She knows that what her husband helped do has changed the world, irrevocably, forever.

But now, Shuichi Aizawa is sitting and listening to his daughter talk about her day, and as far as Eriko is concerned, Kira has _lost_.

-

October, essentially, was the month when everything began.

There are, of course, other ways of looking at the situation. One is that everything began when the Death Note fell to earth and Light Yagami picked it up one cold afternoon in November. Alternatively, it can be said that everything began one day aeons and aeons ago, when out of the mists a new shinigami drifted, with a curling little laugh and a scheming mind that grew easily restless. Perhaps everything began on the final day of February when Light Yagami was born, or when his parents decided that it was time to start a family properly.

All of these, all of them, are starting points. But for this story, for this particular story to have played out this way, for _this many people_ to have been affected in just this way, the day that matters is the 31st of October, when a little boy was born and given the castaway name of L Lawliet.

This last best man is dead now, and he lies in an unmarked grave in a country he never loved. He was buried by men who knew that they did not know him, and a boy with smoke and mirrors encasing his heart. This man, who was strange and slight and was all the brilliance of blown glass, white hot heat and a kind of fundamental fluidity that kept him separate, kept him amazing, this man died at a murderer's hand because of a rigged deck.

It is the 31st of October, 2010, and L Lawliet would have been thirty-one today.

If Near knows one thing – and he does not, he knows many things, perhaps more than anyone else alive – but if he knows one thing that he is sure cannot be disproved, cannot be challenged, cannot come undone, it is this: L should not have died.

At first, when he took the Kira case on, all he could do is rationalise L as having lost and that he was now responsible for redeeming the name and defeating Kira. Redemption was never spoken over, revenge glossed over, because Near had decided he could not care about L any longer.

It was a lie. Every day, always, constantly. First Near wanted to take down Kira because he was Kira. Then he wanted to beat Kira because he beat L. And then, finally, he wanted to kill Kira because he killed Mello.

And for all of L's brilliance, Mello burned through life like nothing Near has ever seen, and unlike L, who you could see and pass and never know, having Mello brush against the edges of your eyeline would mean your world was changed forever.

It occurs to him today how very alone he finds himself, in this world where people are not like him and will never be like him and will never understand him. He understands, for the first time, the primitive need for human companionship, and if he is honest with himself – truly, brutally honest – he did not save Matt.

He saved Matt because Near, he's still just this kid, this brilliant kid, who's been forced to grow up to quickly.

And he's not ready to be alone yet.

-

Five things happen on the evening of Halloween.

-

First, Mogi arrives at Near's hotel room. He is as awkward and uncertain as someone like Mogi ever can or will be, but he holds his head up high and delivers his report.

He did as Near had asked him. He found the apartment rented out by Mello and Matt. He searched it for any evidence that might aid Matt's recovery. He found a small bundle of paper, folded in half, with _So what?_ scrawled across one side. They told stories of Near's childhood, of Mello's childhood – of _Matt's_ childhood, Near realises. He reads them and for the first time in his entire life, he cannot speak for fear of his voice shaking.

The notes are signed _Mail Jeevas, because that's who I am, you fuckers, come and get me._

-

Second, Near goes to the hospital, all by himself, and he forces himself to dress normally, puts on jeans and a shirt that isn't pyjamas, crams his feet into unlaced trainers, and it isn't until he passes a blacked out window that he glances at his reflection and realises that the white top and blue jeans and bags under his eyes have all fallen into place completely by accident.

Matt is awake and his uncovered eye is red and raw.

"I don't know why," he tells Near, "I can't stop crying. Today means something. Today is important. Today matters and _I can't remember why_."

Near tells Matt, "Your name is Mail."

Then, he says, "You lost your parents many years ago. But there was something exceptional about you, and you found yourself at an orphanage called Wammy's House."

Matt looks at him and his eye is still red but behind it, there is a flicker of something, so Near sits down, and carries on.

Only he doesn't narrate Matt's life back at him. This time, he says, "So there was this boy there called Mello, and he changed the world."

-

The third thing occurs in a tiny apartment not all that far away. Rester has fallen asleep on the couch, because he does not know this is L's birthday, and all the trick or treaters stop at the ground floor. Lidner is awake still, sitting in front of the fluorescent glow of the computer.

She is betraying his privacy completely by looking through his records, using what pull she has left to gain access. She is being paranoid by running his recent list of physical complaints through a symptom checker.

She is feeling bad about it until she finds out about the stomach cancer he had treated as quietly as possible eight years ago, and the second browser tab confirms the worst.

-

Across the ocean, Matsuda sits anxiously in the car. A little way away, Misa smoothes her skirt, half out of habit, and maybe half out of nervousness. She rings the doorbell of the little house, and a few moments afterwards, the door is opened.

Sachiko Yagami looks shocked, and then angry, and then sad. And then Misa is delivering the words they worked on together for her – _Mrs Yagami I have only recently found out about Light and I am sorry for not coming to offer my condolences sooner and I –_

And that is as far as she gets before she is pulled into a hug and dragged inside.

Matsuda follows, though he knows this isn't a moment he should invade.

He just has nowhere else to go.

Sachiko asks Misa to stay for a few days and though she seems reluctant to be parted from him for that long, she agrees. It's a needle to his heart but he understands. Sayu, Sachiko – they can understand her loss.

They are perhaps the only people who ever really will.

_You understand it_, a small, subconscious part of his brain whispers, and he ignores it, because it has taken a lot to try to forget that Misa was not the only Kira suspect Matsuda had loved, even if it was only a little.

-

The final thing happens at the edge of the stage, just in the shadow of the curtains. It is London, and there is a gallery show with a Halloween theme. There is a young woman in a sleek, elegant witch's costume, the tall hat perched on her cropped blonde hair. She smiles and talks the visitors through the paintings they lean in to inspect, and then smiles when they inquire as to why she felt the need to include a row of rough sketches in her display.

Because, she finds herself saying, over and over, because these were some boys I knew, some old friends of mine from when I was a kid. They're these insane guys, the sort you meet once and never forget, and they're all so different. It's mad. You can't capture them right if you paint them. It's too much precision. They're rough, they're wild, and they deserve to be seen. I'm sorry, I know it's not up to par. But they deserve to be seen.

No, they're not for sale. Mello, Matt and Near. Yes, they were nicknames. No, I don't know what became of them.

Yes.

Yes, they were incredible.

-


	10. November

Disclaimer: I don't own Death Note. No profit being made. Lyrics lines are Jack's Mannequin, 'Rescued'.

Note: For the wait, this is not a chapter that makes it worthwhile. It's a bridge chapter. It's the last chapter where I'm setting things up, because for the next - and last - two chapters, everything in this story is going to come to fruition. I have never been more excited to write anything in my entire life.

Apologies. The wait has been unacceptable. Considering how deeply I love this story, I shouldn't be doing this. But I consider it the best thing I've ever written, and I'm constantly seized by this paranoid fear that I'm going to ruin it. Also, my life has been completely crazy since the last update. Completely crazy. I've changed so much and, well...it sort of turns out I was in the place I wanted to be at all along. Isn't that cute and convenient?

But you're not here to read about my life. There are other, more interesting things to talk about, and with no further ado, here is the next chapter.

x

**November**

_i'm feeling like i might need to be near you  
but i feel alright  
so please don't get me rescued _

_

* * *

_

The sky is an odd auburn, as if someone had set a fire beyond the horizon. Everything looks surreal and paper-thin, framed in the strange half-light of a sun that hasn't quite decided to set.

Matt is standing on the roof.

It had always seemed so very dramatic, when he saw it in movies or read about it in books, the trauma-struck patient escaping their bed to stand and watch the setting sun on the hospital roof. It is, he has found, not really all that dramatic at all. It is in fact quite chilly.

The sunset is nothing spectacular. It is a weird one, with unusual shades and an odd, subdued hue to it all. Matt romanticises a bit and decides it's sort of like him, then; all the right parts but none of them meshing together. He has always had everything he'd have ever needed to be brilliant, to be incredible, and for some reason, it just never happened.

Not that he's missed it. Not that he's gone without.

But now, Mello is dead.

Mello is dead and he isn't. What he is, though, is tired, and peppered with scars, and blind in one eye. He is also alone, and fully aware that his life has irrevocably changed beyond all comprehension.

Again.

_What_, he thinks, dryly, _that's got to be the third time that's happened to me?_

Matt looks down at the rabbit-warren network of streets below him. He considers jumping, in the same detached, academic way he knew Near would consider a risk to his life. Matt knows he isn't going to jump. He's discovered, lately, that he has this abysmal little talent for staying alive against all odds, and frankly, he's in enough pain.

He isn't really sure, though, what to do when he leaves this rooftop. He knows there will be the slow process of learning to take care of himself again, working out a washing-and-wound-care regime for the mornings, choosing what to have for dinner each night. But there will also be huge, gaping voids in his days, moments when he turns to talk to the guy next to him and remembers he's not there. There's going to be late nights and early mornings, and early nights and late mornings, but Matt, he finds himself completely at a loss as to what, precisely, he's going to do in the middle.

He has always, always known that his friendship with Mello wasn't normal. He was a co-dependent, and he'd made his peace with his lack of individuality a couple of years back. What had never occurred to him, though, was that one day, Mello might not be there. It was, after all, the unthinkable. If Mello went, he went. It would, he'd always thought, be as natural and as simple as that.

And then it happened, and it wasn't. It was natural and simple and completely opposite to everything he had expected.

And that, he realised, was life.

Matt smiles against the cut of the November wind, as the sky begins to wrap dark fingers around him.

He'll get by. Because if there _is_ one thing he is good at, if there is one thing Mail Jeevas is genuinely _brilliant_ at, surpassing Mello and Near and probably even L, it is Just Getting By. Rolling his shoulders back, squaring his chin against the slings and arrows, and clawing his way, kicking and screaming, into every next day.

So that's what he'll do, he thinks. Little by little, bit by bit, he'll get by.

* * *

November is terribly crisp and terribly clear, with ice hanging crystals in exhaled breath and tendrils of steam from fires and chimneys fighting its way up through layer and layer and layer of cold. There is no snow, yet, but all the weather reports are saying it's only a matter of time.

The grass crunches underfoot and the earth is so firm Halle's heels don't even sink into it as she crosses the green. She is glad. She is long out of practice in wearing heels, the days of the office work they were made for are behind her now. Her skirt is neat and cut to hang trim at her knees, her blouse is modest, her jacket buttoned against the cold. All of her softness has been abandoned today, all of the ease and grace that has been gathering in her these past months, all the tranquillity Rester brings her, all of it has slipped off like a lizard's skin.

In some deep, dark, hateful part of her mind, a little voice sneaks out and tells her that that fuzzy coating slipped away rather too easily, rather too quickly, and that it will never be her. It whispers to her that all of this is a lie and she would rather be fighting and burning and breaking...

And then a stronger voice answers back. It answers back in the tones of the agent in the skirt and blouse and heels, but with the passion and conviction of the woman who has fallen in love.

_If it means nothing_, she thinks, all curtness and blazing, blazing fire, and oh, Mello would be proud of the determination in her today, and he always had said she was too cold – _if it means nothing, why the hell am I here today?_

The doctor's office is small and shabby and Halle thinks that's hilarious. Anyone passing, anyone looking inside, would think nothing of it, see just some other sawbones trying to strike out alone for more profit. She would have thought it herself, had it not been for Near informing them, quite clearly, that they were not permitted to seek medical assistance from any other doctor while they worked under him. Halle doesn't know if she'll still be permitted to see him, but she has to try.

The waiting room is predictably empty, and there is no receptionist. The place has the air of a haunted house about it, and she tries to shake the feeling off by calling out, "hello?"

There's a noise and it sounds like a stack of piles sliding off a desk and hitting the floor. "One moment!" comes the reply.

It actually takes Dawson Isaacs several moments to be appear. When he sees her standing there, a look of dread crosses his face. She thinks perhaps he remembers the last time she requested his services, and how well that _didn't_ turn out for him.

"Oh dear. What is it now?" Worry and professionalism do battle in his tone.

"Relax, Doctor." Halle is tired, and has come a long way today, and Rester is going to be wondering where she is when he gets home. "I very desperately need your help."

The look in his eye says he wants to tell her exactly how he feels about her and her desperate needs for help, but she is calm and composed and somewhere beneath the surface is the same kind of panic she bore before, when it was Mello, and she knows that Isaacs, for all his faults and for all his paranoia and panic, is not going to turn her away.

The line of his shoulder slopes downwards suddenly and whatever internal battle he was fighting to stay out of the way of insane little boy geniuses is lost. "What is it, Ms Lidner?"

She takes a file out of her briefcase (and oh, how long it's been since she's used this thing now) and hands it to him. He flicks it open and begins to thumb through it. He stops after a moment, and looks up at her. "This is –"

She nods.

He turns a page, slowly, and his eyes scan line after line and number after number. There is professional impassivity plastered across his face, but playing with the corners of his mouth is something very much like sadness.

"I need to know," she tells him, and there is a desperate insistence in her voice that frightens her. "I just need to know. Is it -?"

"I would have to examine him." It is a lie and she can tell. Sure, Isaacs won't have proof without examining Rester, sure, there'll still be that chance that the cancer that chewed through him once hasn't come back, but –

"It's not good."

"No, Ms Lidner. It is not."

"So – will he have to have an operation, like last time -?"

Isaacs closes the file and hands it back to her. "I am going to have to examine him. And soon, to see what stage the cancer is at."

She nods. She hates this. She hates _doctors_. It's one thing she knows so, so little about, one place where she is completely out of her element and at the mercy of someone else's professional opinion. It's the one type of situation where her guns and her smarts and her coolness and her unbreakable exterior mean precisely nothing.

"I'll tell him to call you," she says, and she goes.

Outside, the cold air hits her and she shivers. The sky is very white in places and very grey in others, and Halle, she has this awful, sneaking feeling that things aren't going to be okay.

They had_ just_ got it back together, just got things on track, and now –

A single drop of rain, icy cold and clear, drops onto her nose. She looks up. The clouds have parted a little, and a shaft of sunlight cuts through the thickness and heaviness of the sky. Rain is starting to fall and the day is suddenly so very bright, the sun caught and refracted through every little drop.

Things will be alright in the end. One way or another. And if the worst is going to happen, well, she's got days and days left yet.

As she watches, she sees the first November rainbow she has ever seen in her life.

* * *

The dinner table is quiet.

Aizawa sits and focuses on his foot with the same intentness he focuses on his work, and Matsuda has this sneaking suspicion that he's like that even when the atmosphere isn't incredibly and inexplicably awkward. Ide pushes a piece of chicken around his plate and every now and then, cuts into it. Eriko carries herself with a kind of manufactured serenity, and every now and then she gives these devil eyes to Ide or Aizawa. Both of them avoid her gaze. For Matsuda, she has only the sweetest of smiles. Laced, perhaps, with a hint of frustration, he thinks, but then again, he's always seeing things that aren't there.

"So," Aizawa says, after a particularly lengthy period of silence.

"So," Ide agrees enthusiastically.

"_So_," Eriko says, and there is something deadly in her tone that confuses Matsuda even more.

There are a few minutes more of awkward silence punctuated by metal scraping against crockery.

Matsuda thinks the chicken is delicious and doesn't understand why Ide isn't eating his. He doesn't understand why everything feels so weird even _he_ is at a loss for something to say. He doesn't notice Ide glancing at him, every now and again, out of the corner of his eye.

"Right." Eriko stands up, bringing her hands heavily down on the table. All three men start violently, and Ide almost knocks his wine over. Eriko shoots out a hand and steadies it, deftly, gracefully. Matsuda thinks that's odd because he's normally the clumsy one, and his wine is sat right where it's meant to be. "Shuichi, can I see you next door for a minute?"

"What?" Aizawa seems nonplussed. "What? Er – ah, alright?" He follows her out of the dining room, and his face is a wonderful mix of relief and confusion.

When they have disappeared, Matsuda leans across to Ide, and asks, "are they alright?"

Ide looks at him as if seeing him for the first time, and finding himself surprised that he is there. "Who? Aizawa and Eriko?"

"Yeah."

"Um, fine, I think. Yeah, fine."

"Why's everything so awkward?"

"A-awkward?" Ide seems incredibly tense, and a part of Matsuda begins to worry. Ide is his friend – his best friend. He knows Ide and Aizawa are probably closer so he isn't Ide's best friend at all (and he isn't sure why, but a small part of him wants to curl up and die at the thought of that. He's always known his friends mean a lot to him but this is new, even for him) but that isn't what matters. Matsuda cares about Ide and he knows he would do anything for him, and he knows Ide has _already_ done so much for him, and now he is sat here, tense and awkward and upset about something and Matsuda has no idea how to help.

He has only ever been good at directness, though, so he sits back, and he says, "Ide, something's bothering you, so tell me what it is." On an instinct, he reaches forward and puts his hand on the other man's shoulder.

Ide abruptly gets to his feet.

"Tell Aizawa thank you for inviting me and Eriko thank you for a lovely meal. I'll see you on Monday."

Before Matsuda can gather the right words to ask if he's leaving, he's already left.

He is left in Aizawa's dining room all on his own.

He looks down at his hands and wonders why he still can't do anything right.

Misa has been at Sayu and Sachiko's for three days now. He went to visit her this afternoon, heart brimful of hope and longing, and did not know how to feel about the young woman who confronted him. She spoke clearly and without trembling, she stood apart and confident. She looked...well, not whole, nowhere near whole, but so much more put-back-together than she had ever been with him.

Ide has left all of a sudden with something bothering him terribly and Matsuda has no idea what. He's had something on his mind for days now, and no amount of prying from him has got it out of the older cop. Ide was there for Matsuda in his darkest days, came out to him in the middle of the night when he was hopped up on God knows what and making seven kinds of ass out of himself, and here he is, doing nothing to help him back.

He cannot help Misa and he cannot help Ide. These are the only two people he has ever felt this strongly, this honestly for – they are the only two people he knows he would go to the ends of the earth for and they are the two people now who he is unable to do one damned thing for.

Just, he thinks – and it is one little errant thought that does it, that begins to unweave and unwind all the months of effort, the mountain of spirit it has taken him to get to this point – just like he couldn't help the Chief, and couldn't stop Light.

And then it all begins again, and before he knows it, Matsuda has left the table. He feels himself walking through the Aizawas' corridor and almost feels separate to himself as he turns the handle of the front door and lets the night air embrace him.

He doesn't want this anymore.

He doesn't want, every day, to be reminded how useless he is. How he can't fix anything. How he can't _help_ anything. There's this pressing feeling, like a hand closing round his lungs, and he can't work out how to shake it off, can't work out how to get free.

He is so God damn _tired_ of feeling like everything is his fault.

Standing outside Aizawa's front door, Matsuda has an epiphany. It isn't a very sensational one, but it comes, nonetheless; a sudden whoosh of inspired thought from the percolating depths of his brain.

_He doesn't have to_.

He thinks about Misa and he thinks about Ide. A frown creases his brow and without paying too much attention to where he is going, he starts walking. He thinks about Light and he thinks about Soichiro Yagami. He thinks about how he has done a lot of things wrong, and more importantly, how he has done an awful lot of things _right_.

Matsuda doesn't understand the awkwardness from the dinner table any better, and he'll never understand how Kira could let his own father die like that. But what he does understand, very keenly, is that neither of those things matter. He is suddenly very certain that neither of those things are his fault. He is abruptly aware that, all minor scrapes and bruises aside, he has not done anything wrong.

And just like that, after months of agonising over detail after detail and moment after moment, Touta Matsuda forgives himself.

He cannot fix the past. But he can fix today, tonight, and so he turns on his heel and marches determinedly back to Aizawa's.

When he's tirns the corner onto his street, he sees Ide getting into his car. He calls out, and for a fraction of a second, Ide's eyes flick up and catch his. Then, he starts his engine.

"What? No, Ide, wait!"

Ide doesn't wait. He disappears into the dark, and Matsuda is left standing alone on the corner.

* * *

"Near."

"Yes?"

The young man looks up from the laptop he is laid next to, his pale, blank eyes momentarily making Mogi's mind go blank.

"May I ask you a question?"

Near regards him unmoving. "You just did."

Mogi has learnt that that is as close to an affirmation as he is going to receive. "Why did you ask me to come here?"

Near, apparently deciding the conversation is not going to be interesting after all, returns his gaze to his screen. "To see if you would."

"To see if I -?" Mogi is taken aback.

"Yes. I had a theory, and I put it to the test. I was, of course, correct."

Mogi does not quite know what to say. He wonders if he should ask, if it would actually yield any results. Gevanni catches his eye from across the room.

"He thought you were better here."

Mogi frowns, looking from Gevanni to Near. "Near? Is that right?"

"Yes, quite correct. I'm impressed you concluded that, Gevanni. But you have always been the most intelligent of the SPK members."

Gevanni does not smile, or do anything else to acknowledge the compliment. He looks, Mogi thinks, the way Mogi himself does when he is told he is the strongest. It has stopped being a compliment. It is simply a fact.

"Mr Mogi, I noticed how your attitude varied during the incident at Yellowbox Warehouse. You were far more secure when involved with my side of the battle. As a result, I thought it only fair to give you the opportunity to return to it." Near looked up at him again then. "I will, of course, not force you into staying. But the offer is always going to be open."

Mogi does not say anything else. Later that night, though, he finds that he can sleep only fitfully, and he cannot quite seem to make up his mind about anything.

* * *

The ring is simple. It is a band of unblemished gold, with no adornments, a plain and practical thing made beautiful only through the truth of what it is.

Like her, Rester thinks, as he hands over the cheque. And like Lidner, the ring is a pale and stunning shiver of unusualness; white gold for a woman who spent her life in the shadow of silver.

And it isn't the cancer talking.

It isn't.

Secretly, he knows that telling himself over and over like this is the surest mark of his uncertainty. And his uncertainty lasts and lasts and lasts, right up until the moment where he sees her that night, all soft-skinned and unspeakably lovely. He thinks then that he's probably been lying up 'til now every time he thought he was sure, because this, _this_ is what certainty feels like.

* * *

Near knew precisely where Matt was the entire time he was 'missing'. That was why, of course, he had told the hospital staff his staff had checked the roof and found no trace of Matt there.

There is a second when he regrets his lie, and is afraid of what Matt might do. He does not _want_ Matt to die. He has fought so hard to keep him alive, to keep one last shred of that old life close to his heart, and to have Matt tear that away from him now would be –

Then, he puts his faith in someone else for a change, because he _read_ those stories Matt wrote to himself the night before he almost died, and he has never respected anyone more in his life.

Eventually, he finds his own way up to the roof, and silently pads across to the edge to sit next to his friend.

"They haven't figured out I keep coming up here?" Matt asks.

Near gives him a sidelong look. "Matt," he says, "where on Earth did you manage to acquire cigarettes."

Matt grins into the air. "Never underestimate my ability to procure nicotine, Near."

They are quiet for a few moments, as the smoke from Matt's cigarette floats up into the smog above the city. Near watches the way it curls, and distantly, the sound of traffic and car horns and frustration rise to his ears.

"It isn't healthy here," he hears himself say.

Matt rests the cigarette on his middle finger. "It isn't healthy anywhere."

"I think you might be right."

They both look at the sky.

"It's alright though, really."

Near looks at him. "What do you mean?"

He gestures to the city, and to the sky. "This. This place. All of it. It's not so bad, really, once you get past pollution and criminals and loneliness and insanity."

Near's expression does not change, but he says, "That's a lot to get through."

"Mm. And then, when you're us, it gets worse. Because you and me – and hey, don't say anything here, I know you're like five times smarter than me – you and me, we think different from most people. We see things like they are, and like they should be, but we also see how to get there. And at least half the time, I think I don't know if I would stop at anything to do it." He doesn't quite look at Near when he says, "I think it's all the time for you."

It isn't an insult, so Near tells him, "It is."

"I'm glad I'm not dead. Thanks, you know."

"I am glad you aren't dead, too."

Matt raises his eyebrows, and pauses with the cigarette at his lips. "Really?"

"Yes."

"Why, Near," Matt says, in an affected tone. "One would almost think you care."

Near almost smiles. His cheek twitches, at least. "You seem mostly back to your old self."

Matt looks down. "It's weird, you know. Remembering who you are in bits and pieces. Remembering that I normally say things this way, but not remembering what I did for any of my birthdays. It's a funny thing, identity." He frowns, then. "And we've spent most of our lives trying to shed it."

Near is quiet. If he is honest, he doesn't quite know what to make of that. It would be a fallacy to state that he had never stopped and thought about such matters: Near has stopped and thought about almost everything under the sun. But there is something in Matt's tone that suggests the shedding of identity is not a good thing, and for the first time in his life, watching the red head's profile in another chilly sunset, Near almost agrees with him.

"Perhaps there is more merit in being who we are than previously thought," he murmurs.

Matt finishes his cigarette, and grinds the butt out next to him on the hard stone of the rooftop. "You're L," he says, "and I'm Mello's sidekick."

Near's breath catches. He has not heard anyone else say Mello's name aloud in quite some time, and he is not sure he is ready for it. It feels like a deep cut to his gut, like a wound, and then suddenly it occurs to him precisely how Matt must be feeling at this moment.

But Matt isn't finished. "Only, we're not. We're Near and Matt. Only, we're _not_. We're Mail Jeevas, and...well, whatever your name is. We're layers upon layers of lies, and –" he stopped and shook his head. "I don't know. My head's a bit of a mess at the moment. It'll clear up."

"It won't," Near told him, with perfect certainty.

"I know," Matt admitted.

There is another pause, and then Near says, "My name is Nate River."

Matt lets his gaze slowly travel up to meet Near's. "Nate, huh? Suits you."

"My parents apparently thought so."

"Near's a pretty crappy name," Matt says ruminatively. "Implies you're never gonna actually _be_ there."

Before he can stop himself, Near says, "Mello was a pretty bad name. It implied he was calm."

There is an instant when Near is terrified he has said completely the wrong thing, and then Matt laughs. It's a rich sound, and an honest one, and a few seconds later, Near finds himself laughing, too.

He hasn't laughed, like this, with a friend, in a very long time. Despite himself, he finds that really, he quite likes it.

Out of nowhere in particular, he remembers being six years old and making the first friend of his life. For what might be the first time, Near feels a sudden pang of regret for the life he has missed out on by being the person he is.

"You know," Matt is saying next to him, wiping tears of mirth from his eyes, "I think we're too much like him, sometime."

"How so?"

"We sit here and take things so damn seriously. Everything's a disaster." He chuckles. "No, it isn't. It's hilarious. Everything is completely ridiculous."

Maybe it's something about Matt, but here, sat on the roof of a hospital in the middle of November, with all his life behind him and a future ripe for the picking, it doesn't sound like such a bad theory.

"We're impossible, you know," Matt says. "We really shouldn't exist. Shouldn't be alive, at least. But we are. We are impossible, and we exist." He laughs. "We can do whatever we want!"

And Near realises that he's right.


End file.
